The ENTIRE West Antarctic ice sheet could collapse and raise global sea levels by 10ft, claim researchers

LOL.  But will the second coming of Christ occur before then?  One might as well say so.  Both prophecies are equally well-founded -- i.e. founded in faith alone.  It's just another fantasy from Schellnberger's absurd Potsdam Institute, which ignores the fact that the Antarctic ice is in fact GROWING.  Even NASA says so.  That may not last but what will happen in the distant future is unknown
   
Last year, scientists claimed that glaciers in the Amundsen Sea of West Antarctica had reached a point of 'unstoppable' retreat.

They said these glaciers were locked in a thaw linked to global warming that may push up sea levels for centuries.

Now, a new study has add fresh urgency to the issue, after suggesting melting of the Amundsen sea's glaciers would lead to the collapse of all of West Antarctica.

A small amount of melting in the next 60 years, could destabilise the entire ice sheet and the rise of global sea levels by 9.8ft (3 meters), according to the Potsdam Institute in Germany.

The results could be catastrophic. A full discharge of ice into the ocean could lead to a 3 metre (9.8ft) rise in sea-levels, scientists have warned.

Currently, more than 150 million people globally live within just 1 meter of the sea. In the US, a 3 meter rise in sea levels would swallow cities such as New York and Miami.

The research, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used an advanced climate model to study what will happen if these glaciers collapsed.

The Amundsen Sea has long been thought to be the weakest ice sheet in the West Antarctic. But this study is the first to look specifically at how losses in the Amundsen Sea could affect the entire ice sheet in the long term.

According to the computer simulations, a few decades of ocean warming can start an ice loss that continues for centuries or even millennia. At current melting rates, the ice sheet will hit a critical point in about 60 years, it said.

'What we call the eternal ice of Antarctica unfortunately turns out not to be eternal at all,' says Johannes Feldmann, lead author of the study at the Potsdam Institute. 'Once the ice masses get perturbed, which is what is happening today, they respond in a non-linear way. 'There is a relatively sudden breakdown of stability after a long period during which little change can be found.'

'A few decades can kick-start change going on for millennia.'

A recent Nasa study found that the Antarctic ice sheet is adding more ice than it's losing, but this won't be the case in the long-term.

Ocean warming is slowly melting the ice shelves from beneath, those floating extensions of the land ice.

Large portions of the West Antarctic ice sheet are grounded on bedrock below sea level and generally slope downwards in an inland direction. Ice loss can make the grounding line retreat.

Scientists say the early stages of collapse have already begun and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

Antarctica is gaining more ice than it loses from its glaciers, new research by Nasa claims.  It says Antarctica's ice sheet is currently thickening enough to outweigh increased losses caused by melting glaciers, which is attributed to global warming.

The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is losing land ice overall.  But it also warns that losses could offset the gains in years to come.

The increase in Antarctic snow began 10,000 years ago and continues in East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica by an average of 0.7 inches (1.7cm) per year, according to the space agency.

Researchers analysed satellite data to demonstrate the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.

'We're essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica,' said Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with Nasa Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland and lead author of the study published in the Journal of Glaciology.

'Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica – there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.'

This exposes more ice to the slightly warmer ocean water - further accelerating the retreat.

'In our simulations 60 years of melting at the presently observed rate are enough to launch a process which is then unstoppable and goes on for thousands of years,' Feldmann says.

This would eventually yield at least 3 meters of sea-level rise.

'This certainly is a long process,' Feldmann says. 'But it's likely starting right now.'

'So far we lack sufficient evidence to tell whether or not the Amundsen ice destabilisation is due to greenhouse gases and the resulting global warming,' added co-author and IPCC sea-level expert Anders Levermann, also from the Potsdam Institute.

'But it is clear that further greenhouse-gas emission will heighten the risk of an ice collapse in West Antarctica and more unstoppable sea-level rise.'

'That is not something we have to be afraid of, because it develops slowly,' he said.

'But it might be something to worry about, because it would destroy our future heritage by consuming the cities we live in - unless we reduce carbon emission quickly.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).