Comments on: Doomsday Glacier’s Ticking Clock: Satellites Reveal “Vigorous Melting” Beneath Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier

By: Clyde Spencer

Clyde Spencer — Wed, 22 May 2024 19:53:40 +0000

“Each interferometric fringe color cycle is a 360 degree change in phase, equivalent to a 1.65 cm displacement in line-of-sight distance of the ice surface.”

I count 13 red rings, amounting to about 21 cm of surface-elevation change or, I assume, a wedge of seawater about the same magnitude. That doesn’t carry much heat energy compared to a deep or thick wedge of water. Might the authors be overstating the potential impact?

By: Scott Snell

Scott Snell — Wed, 22 May 2024 15:38:55 +0000

If “rivers of meltwater,” as some stories have phrased it, are flowing beneath Thwaites, it almost certainly isn’t due to climate change, which may have caused a fraction of a degree increase in ocean and air temperatures. Far more likely to be responsible are the many subglacial active volcanoes that dot the region. As it turns out, Western Antarctica is home to the worlds greatest concentration of active volcanoes, 137 of them at last count. In total they release staggering amounts of heat, which is what you need if you want to melt vast quantities of ice at -50C.

This crucial fact is almost always left out of stories about the “Doomsday” glacier, which has a long history of erratic behavior. This story, alas, is no exception.

By: JeffC

JeffC — Wed, 22 May 2024 14:26:12 +0000

Enough already with the climate fear-porn

By: Ken Towe

Ken Towe — Wed, 22 May 2024 11:18:43 +0000

“This work will help people adapt to changing ocean levels, along with focusing on reducing carbon emissions to prevent the worst-case scenario.”

Adaptation and infrastructure preparations should be the focus. Reducing carbon emissions will take none of the CO2 already added out of the atmosphere to have any effect on global temperatures. That would be counterproductive to finishing the transition to renewables and EVs. There is essentially nothing practical or realistic that can be done about this glacier except monitor it.