Greetings all,
Below is a very good example of the results of the philosophy of promoting
the maximization of man's power over nature, without consulting or taking
into account other people.
For justice and peace,
Sylvie
Antarctica on the Brink: NASA Emeritus Scientist Warns of Dramatic Loss of
Glaciers
By Dahr Jamail
Truthout, Monday, March 14, 2016
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35202-antarctica-on-the-brink-nasa-emeritus-scientist-warns-of-dramatic-loss-of-glaciers?tmpl=component&print=1
"Every degree of heat increase melts an additional 30 feet of ice, each
year," says Robert Bindschadler, who worked for 35 years as a glaciologist
at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Scientific reports about the increasing pace of melting ice--in all its
forms around the planet--are being published on a nearly daily basis.
A study published in January revealed a dramatic increase in melt rates on
Antarctica's most stable ice shelf, when it showed that melting rates were
25 times higher than expected.
This disconcerting news comes a year after another study, which showed that
the largest glacier in eastern Antarctica (Totten Glacier), which by itself
contains the ice equivalent of a 20-foot rise in global sea levels, is
melting due to warming ocean waters.
Other reports showing how increasingly warm ocean waters are contributing to
an accelerating melting of large portions of Antarctica continue to be
published on a regular basis.
NASA emeritus scientist Robert Bindschadler, who worked for 35 years as a
glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, is warning the global
community about impending sea level rise. He is also doing what he can to
educate people about the mechanisms causing the rapidly increasing melting
of our polar regions, with the hope that it will make us more mindful of our
carbon dioxide emissions, which have created the crisis of anthropogenic
climate disruption (ACD).
Bindschadler led 18 field expeditions to Antarctica, and has participated in
many other expeditions to glaciers and ice caps around the world. He
actively developed applications that measure ice velocity and elevation
using both visible and radar imagery, monitor melt of and snowfall on ice
sheets by microwave emissions, and detect changes in ice sheet volume by
repeat space-borne radar altimetry (using satellites to measure ice sheet
thickness).
Bindschadler, who has published over 130 scientific papers, has advised the
US Congress and the vice president on the stability of ice sheets and ice
shelves and served on many scientific commissions and study groups as an
expert in glaciology and remote sensing of ice. He also has degrees in
astronomy and physics.
A winner of numerous scientific awards, Bindschadler continues to be a
leader in the public conversation around the climate's impact on the world's
ice sheets and glaciers. Although he is retired, he maintains an active
interest in the dynamics of glaciers and ice sheets, investigating how
remote sensing can be used to improve our understanding of the role of ice
in the earth's climate.
A little more than a year after first interviewing Bindschadler, Truthout
spoke with him again to get an update on his concerns about Antarctic
glaciers, the melting of Greenland and the Arctic sea ice, and sea level
rise in the future.
Dahr Jamail: The world's glaciers are in peril. A disturbing report has
shown that they have shrunk to their lowest levels ever witnessed in the
history of record-keeping. They are melting at an accelerating rate - two to
three times faster than the 20th century average melt rate. As if to
punctuate the findings of the report, the world's fastest melting glaciers,
located in Greenland, a short while ago lost the largest amount of ice on
record in just a 48-hour period. How much faster should we expect this kind
of melting to increase?
Robert Bindschadler: Two things cause concern: One is the dynamics [ocean
dynamics]; the other is surface mass balance, which is how much melting of
the surface is taking place that is running into the ocean. Greenland has to
be a concern for both of those. Right now, each of those two aspects is
contributing to generate about half the ice loss in Greenland. Surface
melting is increasing, so that has to be a concern. So that is part of the
increasing contribution to sea level rise.
"LOSING THE LAND GLACIERS LEADS TO OTHER EXTREMELY SERIOUS PROBLEMS, LIKE
LACK OF WATER FOR DRINKING AND IRRIGATING CROPS."
Also, Greenland is a player in this dynamic contribution that we still do
not understand.... There are complex triggering mechanisms like atmospheric
and oceanic heat that both open the valves and pull the corks totally out of
the bottles - bottles meaning the ice that was previously holding the ice
sheets in place and keeping them from flowing down into the water - and the
ice flows faster into the oceans. That dynamic response is what we are
trying to understand better, because it's an oceanographic and an
atmospheric scientist's problem as well as one for glaciologists.
But we are seeing immediate increases to sea level there [in Greenland], and
a dynamic response that could be significant and play out over decades, not
centuries, and that is likely to be triggered in both Greenland, Washington
State, Alaska and other places.
Dahr Jamail: Triggering it is complex, with the aforementioned linkages,
but also the evolution of that. Exactly how does the ice sheet respond as it
continues to deliver ice and melt? How fast does that evolve? It may not
evolve quite as rapidly as models suggest, but then again maybe it does.
Robert Bindschadler: We see tidewater glaciers making catastrophic retreats
in Greenland, and we are trying to see if ice sheets can respond the same
way. It could well be on decadal time scales, not measured in centuries as
it was in the past.
The surface melting in Greenland, though, is immediate: We are sure of it,
and it is easiest to measure. [NASA published a recent study showing that
the ice covering Greenland is melting faster than previously believed. NASA
has also published an intriguing short video that shows the accelerating
melting of Greenland. The National Research Council of the National
Academies has recently published similar findings.]
Dahr Jamail: In the Arctic, things continue to look grim. On September 11,
2015, Arctic sea ice dropped to its fourth-lowest level on record, amid what
is now a decades-long ACD-generated decline. It seems clear we should expect
this trend to continue, correct?
Robert Bindschadler: Generally each year this is increasing. It is
anticipated as a positive feedback mechanism, as once you expose the sea ice
cover you expose more dark ocean that absorbs more solar energy, which
speeds it all up. We have known this for 30 years. It is a very strong, very
disturbing positive feedback mechanism with obvious global implications.
Dahr Jamail: One thing we don't hear too much about amidst the general
conversation about ACD is the loss of land ice, both in the Arctic and
elsewhere around the world, like in Alaska, the Andes and glaciers in
Central Asia. Another recent study provided some worrisome news about
glaciers in Central Asia, where it is now estimated that they have melted
away four times faster than the global average since the early 1960s, losing
more than one-quarter of their total mass in that time frame. Given that
glaciers comprise a primary water source for millions of people in China,
Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, this does not bode well. How much
impact does this have on sea level rise, and what trends are you seeing?
Robert Bindschadler: If all the land ice melts, all the ice caps, land
glaciers, etc.... you would still only get less than half a meter [of] sea
level rise globally. But this remains a concern, because this is at the
front edge, as this component comes into play with warming. You don't need a
lot of complex dynamics to melt the land glaciers. It's like Greenland's
surface; it just melts without other factors. But losing the land glaciers
leads to other extremely serious problems, like lack of water for drinking
and irrigating crops.
"EVERY DEGREE OF HEAT INCREASE MELTS AN ADDITIONAL 30 FEET OF ICE, EACH
YEAR. SO THAT IS A POWERFUL HEAT GUN."
Dahr Jamail: There are IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]
glaciologists monitoring this and trying to quantify how climate changes are
manifesting in the reduction of glaciers, and most of their basic
projections are that there will be a lot of melting and reduction in the
next few decades, then a trailing off as less ice of this type exists around
the globe, then progressing into subsequent decades where there will only be
little patches [of glacial ice on land] that remain. This assessment
includes the Andes and Himalaya, and Alaska, where the bigger reservoirs
are.
Robert Bindschadler: I think at least half of all the ice in North America
and the Himalaya could be gone by 2100. That assessment is from the IPCC,
which is the most careful, conservative and comprehensive data. There will
always be patches that exist longer, as there will always be glaciers in
deep cirques facing north that never see the sun, but that half meter they
have to contribute to sea level rise will be mostly played out by 2100.
Dahr Jamail: When we last spoke you went into detail about the mechanics
that cause climate scientists to be overly conservative in their
predictions. Please sum up how this happens for our readers, since it is an
ongoing phenomenon.
Robert Bindschadler: Climate models have been criticized as being too
dramatic and overestimating response, but it's just the opposite: They tend
to be too conservative because they are tied to data that was used from the
beginning of studies. So they are tuned in to what has been going on, not
able to capture all the acceleration that we are witnessing.
But as things continue to ramp up and the data captures more of that
acceleration, the models will then project more acceleration. But in
general, they tend to underestimate these positive feedbacks. Our
observations compared to past projections are showing that things are
continually worse than we had projected them. That is not a cause to
distrust the models, but a cause for broader concern for what is happening
around the planet.
Dahr Jamail: In Antarctica, a world-renowned climate scientist recently
reported that the "sleeping giant" Eastern Antarctic ice sheet, which
comprises the vast majority of the ice in Antarctica, is far more sensitive
to ACD than we previously believed. If it melted, it would contribute 50
meters to global sea level rise. What are your observations about the
possibility of this occurring?
Robert Bindschadler: There are regions of Antarctica where the ice is
sitting on a bed that is well below sea level. So this feature is marine ice
sheet instability, which is driving a lot of the WAIS [Western Antarctic ice
sheet] focus, for sure. When we look at paleoclimate data and try to assess
how high sea level was long ago, you have to add in some of the melt from
EAIS [Eastern Antarctic ice sheet], as Greenland, Washington, Alaska and
other land ice areas melting do not provide enough sea level rise to match
what we found in the paleoclimate data... EAIS ice core suggest a fairly
stable configuration over the last hundreds of thousands [of] years. I'm
still far more concerned about the WAIS as the big player, along with
Greenland as the near-term concern, than I am about the EAIS. I've yet to
see data to shift my focus away from Greenland and the WAIS.
[Another study reveals that all of the ice in the Antarctic will melt if all
of the fossil fuels that we are currently aware of are burned. Given that
there is no evidence to support the idea that global political will is aimed
at weaning the global economy off fossil fuel use, we must take this
information very seriously. The study shows that, if Antarctica melts,
global temperatures will rise an average of 12 degrees Celsius, and major
cities like Berlin, Shanghai, New York and numerous others will cease to
exist.]
Dahr Jamail: Given the dramatic impacts that the loss of most land ice,
eventually the Arctic sea ice and the WAIS, and possibly parts of the EAIS,
will have on the planet and its species, it is important for people to
become better acquainted with the processes that are causing the melting. In
this way, perhaps more knowledge of what our emissions are doing to impact
the natural world and its systems could cause people to be more mindful when
it comes to driving a car or hopping on another jet. Please go into detail
about how our already having warmed the planet just 0.85 degrees Celsius is
causing tectonic shifts in the atmospheric and ocean current circulatory
systems of Earth.
Robert Bindschadler: Speaking about what is impacting Antarctica, the basics
of it are that the atmospheric winds influence the ocean and the ocean
affects the ice. These are all at play in Greenland, too. In the Antarctic,
you have the circumpolar winds rotating clockwise around the continent, and
these isolate the continent.
Two things result from this: The first is that the Antarctic is isolated
from other weather patterns, so as the rest of the world has warmed, the
Antarctic hasn't warmed as much. So that causes an increased isolation, as
the temperature gradient of the warm tropics and the cold Antarctic
increases, that causes an increase in pressure. That pressure has increased
the speed of the circumpolar winds.
The second thing that results from this is the winds drag the ocean along
with it. So there is a huge, strong, powerful, broad current, the Antarctic
circumpolar current, that is spun up and drag along by the winds. So now we
have the ocean going around faster and faster because the air is dragging it
faster. In the Southern Hemisphere, because of the rotation of the planet,
the faster ocean water is turning a little more to the left, and that steers
it away from the continent of Antarctica, so that is forcing water from a
greater depth to upwell high enough for it to spill onto the continental
shelf. And this is warm water because in the tropics you have warm water on
top and cold water down deep. In the polar oceans, you have three layers, a
cold surface, then a warm layer, then the cold deep waters, because sea ice
freezes and melts every year, hence the creation of the cold surface layer.
So it's the surface layer being pushed away, and the upwelling is warm.
So once it does that, the continental shelf is tilted down toward the ice
sheet, so the warm, dense, salty water gets onto the shelf, and hugs the
shelf, and flows down toward the ice sheet, contacting it at the grounding
zone where the ice is, melting the ice very, very rapidly. Every degree of
heat increase melts an additional 30 feet of ice, each year. So that is a
powerful heat gun.
Dahr Jamail: In the United States, a glaciologist with more than 30 years
of experience in the field recently described the loss of glaciers in the
Pacific Northwest as "disastrous." "This is the single biggest volume loss
in the last 50 years," he said of the region that has seen its glaciers
shrink by between 25 and 40 percent since the mid-1980s. Another scientist
estimates the region's glaciers are already smaller than they have been for
at least the last four millennia. Dramatic reports like this are coming out
on a nearly daily basis. However, we will still have rebound years of cooler
temperatures and higher snowfalls, which ACD deniers like to point toward as
"proof" that there is no "global warming." Talk about the pitfalls of
looking at short-term results that point in either direction.
Robert Bindschadler: It's tempting, even for scientists, if there's a really
warm year, to point to that and say, "See!" But if there's a rebound the
next year, the naysayers will be pointing to that and saying, "See!"
Scientists have to discount the individual year-to-year behavior and stay
focused on the trends. There is more confidence in the trends. But
especially in the Pacific Northwest where you and I live, these past 12
months have been useful from a communication aspect, because we've been
experiencing what I have to say is the new normal... the drought, the
significantly reduced snowpacks. And there's been talk of this throughout
the winter: In the media here, they are mentioning the increased likelihood
of droughts.
Then this last summer, when our rivers were closed to fishing, that is when
educators talk about this as being a "teachable" moment. This is more common
now. Once people experience something, it is no longer theoretical. This can
then be used as an example of what the models are pointing out. So, more and
more people are paying attention. Another example is the wildfires being a
direct consequence of the drought. Because people are actually experiencing
these things now, it's easier to talk about what it's going to look and feel
like. The dots we are trying to connect are getting closer and closer
together.
Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, is the author of The Will to Resist:
Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, (Haymarket Books,
2009), and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist
in Occupied Iraq, (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from Iraq for
more than a year, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the
last ten years, and has won the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative
Journalism, among other awards.
His third book, The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening, and Who
Is Responsible, co-written with William Rivers Pitt, is available now on
Amazon. He lives and works in Washington State.
To see more stories like this, visit "Planet or Profit?"
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