FarmerJohn
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Scientific American Magazine - February, 2008
The Unquiet Ice
Abundant liquid water newly discovered underneath the world's great ice sheets could intensify the destabilizing effects of global warming on the sheets. Then, even without melting, the sheets may slide into the sea and raise sea level catastrophically
By Robin E. Bell
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-unquiet-ice
Key Concepts:
The land-based ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica hold enough water to raise global sea level by more than 200 feet.
A complex “plumbing system” of rivers, lakes and meltwater lies under the ice sheets. That water “greases” the flow of vast streams of ice toward the ocean.
For millennia, the out going discharge of ice has been balanced by incoming snowfall. But when warming air or surface meltwater further greases the flow or removes its natural impediments, huge quantities of ice lurch seaward.
Models of potential sea-level rise from climate change have ignored the effects of subglacial water and the vast streams of ice on the flow of ice entering the sea.
SciAm makes it difficult and/or expensive to view articles online. If you are interested in this article, your best bet is to buy the magazine from your favorite newsstand or read it in your public library. That may be just as well, considering how frequently important diagrams frequently fail to display on online versions of print articles.
FJ
The Unquiet Ice
Abundant liquid water newly discovered underneath the world's great ice sheets could intensify the destabilizing effects of global warming on the sheets. Then, even without melting, the sheets may slide into the sea and raise sea level catastrophically
By Robin E. Bell
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-unquiet-ice
Key Concepts:
The land-based ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica hold enough water to raise global sea level by more than 200 feet.
A complex “plumbing system” of rivers, lakes and meltwater lies under the ice sheets. That water “greases” the flow of vast streams of ice toward the ocean.
For millennia, the out going discharge of ice has been balanced by incoming snowfall. But when warming air or surface meltwater further greases the flow or removes its natural impediments, huge quantities of ice lurch seaward.
Models of potential sea-level rise from climate change have ignored the effects of subglacial water and the vast streams of ice on the flow of ice entering the sea.
SciAm makes it difficult and/or expensive to view articles online. If you are interested in this article, your best bet is to buy the magazine from your favorite newsstand or read it in your public library. That may be just as well, considering how frequently important diagrams frequently fail to display on online versions of print articles.
FJ