The ‘doomsday’ glacier’s giant ice shelf is about to break away
Posted by switchsk8r@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 61 comments
Posted by switchsk8r@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 61 comments
OrangeCrack@reddit
I’ve heard from a good authority that dropping a big chunk of ice into the ocean will actually solve climate change once and for all…. Maybe this won’t be so bad?
Free backyard pools for everyone.
Commercial-Buddy2469@reddit
So, about how long until the people who live on North Sentinel Island notice the effects of this?
Agreeable-Throat7016@reddit
Of course it is, we have hantavirus and ebola, worldwide crop failure, oil crisis, economic doom and falling birthrate. Im going to watch children of men and cry.
patrick95350@reddit
Look, all that is bad, but what are we supposed to do, NOT vote for the Nazi pedophiles?
alekazam13@reddit
Hantavirus currently does not have the potential to be pandemic. The R0 (reproduction rate) is low at around 2 if completely unmitigated. This means for every person who gets it, 2 people will contract the virus. What scares me much much more is Measles. Measles has an R0 of 12 to 18 and it resets your immune system. So all the resistance your body builds to various diseases is wiped. So you can get completely random unrelated diseases. Measles is on the rise and in the US and Canada there is a risk of loosing eradication status. We could eradicate Measles globally with the MMR vaccine like smallpox if people were willing to vaccinate, but alas anti-vaccine BS is being pushed by RFK Jr so this isnt happening anytime soon.
Another scary issue in Public Health is the Trump administration the stoppage of reporting HPAI (Highly Pathonigenic Avian Flu or H5N1) cases. We have limited knowledge of how HPAI is moving through industrial dairy farms, wild birds, and industrial chicken farms. Moreover, the Trump administration has pulled the plug on most public health programs and research. Its real bad right now in public health (I haven't had a job in Public Health in 3 years 🙃) as the systems that were put in place to prevent infectious disease spread, to research new vaccines, etc are disappearing. When the next pandemic hits we will be so so unprepared. Covid will look cute compared to what could happen if we don't start investing public health.
If you are interested in more I am happy to link some resources.
Source: MPH in Epidemiology and Global Health
dashingsauce@reddit
Sorry — how is R0 of 2+ (we do have 10 confirmed cases from one index case, or multiple generations and not counting that) not have the potential to be pandemic?
COVID-19 is between R0 2.5-5, and that did pretty well with a shorter incubation period and easy detection.
I don’t understand the part where we waltz over that for hanta?
alekazam13@reddit
There are a couple of reasons why Hantavirus doesnt have the capacity to cause a pandemic (at least right now)
Its very deadly and quickly incapacitates a person. Its case fatality rate is around 38 percent so the people who get it aren't going out in the world spreading the disease. They are hospitalized and contained. Very few secondary infections have occurred through medical professionals taking care of a Hantavirus case.
It is limited in its capacity to spread. You have to be in a room taking care of the person and through bodily fluids contract the virus or prolonged contact. Just walking into a room with a Hantavirus case won't spread the disease. You have to be in a crowded poorly ventilated room. COVID on the other hand easily spreads in even ventilated rooms.
dashingsauce@reddit
You are deeply mistaken on the basics of this virus, so I won’t engage here.
Nearly all of what you wrote is misinformation, heresay, information compression that changes the conclusion, and misunderstanding of how long-incubation relates transmission.
The one thing that is important to highlight as the core of your circular logic: “they aren’t going out into the world spreading the disease… they are hospitalized and contained.”
I hope you see how problematic it is to put the cart before the horse here.
You can’t use the assumption of 100% natural self-selected containment as the basis for your argument on the risk of transmission lol
HommeMusical@reddit
These additional cases are all from individuals who were in very close contact with an infected individual in a small area (a cruise cabin) for days.
We thought for a while the KLM flight attendant was an exception, but no, they did not actually get the virus.
A dozen or so infected people flew in commercial airplanes for hours with no transmission; I don't believe this is consistent with an R0 of >2.
dashingsauce@reddit
You’re assuming negative tests are conclusive while still within the incubation period, which they are not.
Also, we don’t actually have information about how cases interfaced with one another. There were 147 people on the ship, and ~10% of them are infected so far—they were not all sharing the same cabin.
We don’t actually know what the mechanism of spread was on the ship, which is also why the airborne question is on the table.
Again, your comment is exactly the problem with this virus. You think it’s over but there are at least four more weeks before any negative results can actually be confirmed.
There’s also an entire 88 passenger Airlink flight where the dutch woman rode for 6.5 hours the day before she died, and those contacts are not contained. The plane was also re-used twice before the airline was informed.
An American woman at the Nebraska Quarantine Center, who tested negative on blood serology (PCR) several times, said she wanted to take the CDC up on the home isolation thing. Turns out, she’s not actually allowed to leave.
You don’t lie to your patients and the general public about their rights like that unless your true operational posture is managing a risk far greater than what you’re saying.
If Andes hantavirus had low risk of transmission, she would probably be allowed to isolate at home.
If we actually knew how hantavirus transmission worked throughout the lifetime of an infected person, France wouldn’t be imposing full quarantine on contacts of asymptomatic passengers. Italy wouldn’t have arrested an asymptomatic UK passenger at a bar in Milan and forced him to enter mandatory quarantine.
Right now we’re very much just staring at the fork. Confirmed cases will necessarily lag the edge of the transmission graph by 2-4 weeks due to the incubation period and the difficulty of PCR testing for Andes Hantavirus.
So you’re essentially looking at 2-4 week old data. Like how starlight is not realtime.
Ao-sagi@reddit
I‘m a former biologist turned computer scientist who used to work in control of wildlife diseases like rabies. What concerns me about this is that, as usual, medical experts concentrate on person to person spread and completely forget that the local rodent population is highly susceptible to the virus and may act as a future reservoir now in places that didn’t have the Andes strain before… which is now potentially everywhere a symptomatic infected person used the toilet instead of a hazardous material bin.
alekazam13@reddit
Good point. Just like wild birds with HPAI, the virus can mutate to become better adapted to human to human transmission. In cities, humans are in contact with rats so its very possible it becomes endemic in the US if this isnt contained properly.
hippydipster@reddit
TIL former biologists are real downers.
ScurvyDawg@reddit
That's one of the only movie that makes me cry every time.
IRockIntoMordor@reddit
It's just so bleak, yet crushingly realistic.
Depression as a movie. And no good thing comes without loss.
Absolute masterpiece. After recommending it to my parents and friends, they said "please don't recommend depressing movies like that again". They can't handle it.
And I sit here watching the planet burn.
HommeMusical@reddit
I mean, it does have a happy ending! A child is born; perhaps humans are not doomed.
The scene where there's some pitched battle and then people hear a baby cry and everyone stops fighting and watches with literal awe, and then once the child is safe, they go back to fighting... that makes me weep every time, both the best and worst of humanity in a minute or two.
digital@reddit
We have to stop burning oil and switch immediately to renewable energy if we’re going to have a chance
ianlSW@reddit
Rate we're going you might as well speed run it, skip children of men and go straight to 'The Road'
switchsk8r@reddit (OP)
Statement:
“It’s dramatic. I was there in 2019/2020 and when I look at the satellite images now, I don’t recognise the shelf. There are huge gashes where there used to be none,”
The ice shelf’s demise is also signalled by a dramatic speed-up in its flow rate. “It’s tripled from January 2020 to January 2026, to just over 2000 metres per year, which is nuts,” says Wild. And in the past five months, the flow has accelerated further. “It’s essentially in free fall now.”
This is concerning for future sea levels around the world. “That means more ice unloaded from Antarctica, more ice dumped into the ocean and more sea-level rise,” says Scambos, though he stresses that this isn’t an immediate crisis – rather, a slowly unfolding one that will hit home in decades. “It’s going to influence the way Thwaites evolves and how fast it gets to that point where it’s contributing 10 or 20 per cent to sea-level rise in the future.”
By 2067, it is estimated that Thwaites will be losing about 190 gigatonnes of ice per year... This is a 30 per cent increase from today’s loss from the glacier, and equivalent to the total amount of ice currently being lost from Antarctica.
Glaciers are becoming increasingly unstable and this will lead to sea level rise and, though not mentioned here, weaker glaciers cause the earth to take in more heat cause of reflectivity and exposed dark ocean. This is worsening an already bad feedback loop.
hippydipster@reddit
A 30% increase in ice per year in 40 years? That does not correspond to "is about to break away", nor does it correspond to "it's essentially in free fall now". People need to state these things less hyperbolically. The straight news is bad enough, it doesn't need to be such an easy target for ridicule.
switchsk8r@reddit (OP)
An increase of loss. So basically 30% more loss of ice
dashingsauce@reddit
Umm wtf? 2000 meters per year????
jykke@reddit
The "2000 metres per year" flow rate refers to the accelerated speed at which the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf—the floating ice at the front of the Thwaites Glacier—is moving.
DreadPirateReddas@reddit
Moving where? Which way is it going?
jykke@reddit
Flow rate refers to the speed at which the solid ice is moving outward from the land toward the sea. This is when the sea level rise occurs: the glacier flows past the coastline and pushes into the water, displacing ocean water.
dashingsauce@reddit
No yeah I got that part…
JHandey2021@reddit
But will Michael Mann authorize discussion of it?
budz@reddit
just refreeze the poles with some co2
c'mon gais do i have to figure everything out
9966seg9966@reddit
Everyone put your fridge outside amd leave it open, that'll show the climate who's boss
Delcane@reddit
Also throw our collective ice cubes to the sea. 3 cubes a day per citizen
9966seg9966@reddit
The cubes! it's all so simple
Delcane@reddit
LatzeH@reddit
Link doesn't work.
Also, would this not trigger the AMOC collapse? If so, rising seas are the least of our worries.
CorvidCorbeau@reddit
This is the most relevant study I found on that question. It had some intriguing results in some sections.
https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/15/859/2024/
UnspeakablePudding@reddit
Am I reading the abstract correctly? This postulates that an influx of antarctic meltwater prior to an influx of arctic meltwater may have a stabilizing effect on the AMOC?
StrongAroma@reddit
I mean, let's be honest: this is completely uncharted territory, no one knows what the hell will happen
ShyElf@reddit
This is just a toy model, but generally yes. Antarctic melting strongly suppresses Antarctic deep convection, which allows the deep water to gradually get lighter, driving more convection everywhere else. Surface freshening migrating into the North Atlantic would have the opposite effect, so it's at least possible to get a decrease.
Melting of Greenland, of course, gives strong AMOC decline.
AMOC decline gives Antarctic melting. Models generally have it take decades, but it's been edging down for centuries now. Mostly they haven't been talking about it much, because they were assuming a decline starting too late relative observed proxies, with melting peaking off the end of the simulation timeline.
TernarySquare0123@reddit
I read this one back in 2024 - iirc, yes with caveats. In some scenarios the rate-based effect of the distributed meltwater significantly stabilizes AMOC, compared to other scenarios.
A definite remind that we are looking at complex systems and there are many unknown unknowns. Of course, there's no reason to believe they will net out in our favor. The Precautionary Principle would be warranted.
blackcatwizard@reddit
It looks like it's an interesting study that I'm going to have to fully read. Got through a bit, and a few things stood out to me (and these might be answered later): "In this study, the occurrence of an AMOC collapse drastically depends on the rate of forcing, as well as on the time delay between the tipping of both ice sheets. However, rate-induced effects were not explored in detail, and the stochastic case was not considered". In relation to this, there's no mention of current or assumed ocean temperatures (whether SST or other) and what effects those have on forcing. They also compare, early, WAIS meltwater to GIS ice loss, rather than GIS meltwater, which I find interesting. We know the GIS is lossing 30-33 millions tons of ice per hour, is this what they mean, or are they different measures and values? I think it's going to be an interesting study to read theough, but without including rate-induced effects (or the stochastic case) I'm not sure how well the presumptive outcome of GIS then WAIS = stabilization holds up.
Filthy_Lucre36@reddit
I think it's fair to say with massive glacial meltoff coupled with an upcoming ice-free arctic ocean, trying to predict just about anything even with the best models in the world is going to be quite a monumental task.
Oo_mr_mann_oO@reddit
least of our worries
The fun part is understanding that it's all connected and the least of your worries might be the main concern for a few hundred million people an ocean away. Eventually, we start starving, and our conflicts go nuclear as they become existential. Eventually, the geo-engineering projects get bigger and have larger "side effects." Eventually, the sun explodes, so don't worry.
mrpickles@reddit
Nice TED talk
Vel0cir@reddit
if you copy and paste the part of the link that starts with www, it will work
SinickalOne@reddit
You’re correct, but the knock on effects may occur in tandem, which are definitely of immediate concern for island nations and coastal areas with large populations.
Ric0chet_@reddit
Oh yeah! Worth it. /s
Fearless-Temporary29@reddit
Tears before bedtime.
ThruTheUniverseAgain@reddit
I just went to Google to take a look at it. It seems even more detached from Antarctica in Google than the image in the article.
economybadplantsgood@reddit
Where's the livestream lol 👀🙃☹️
Purplealegria@reddit
Great…just send the damn flood or the giant meteor already.
This is getting ridiculous.
denisebuttrey@reddit
Ah geeze!
freedcreativity@reddit
Oooooo that’s bad. Anyone have 3m sea level rise by 2030 in their bingo card?
9966seg9966@reddit
That's the free space
smajliiicka@reddit
I do :)
combativeginger@reddit
Take the additional ice, make the data centers use only the water from the ice
gmuslera@reddit
"it is about to break away"... followed by "By 2067 it is estimated that will be losing 190 gigatones of ice per year"
Are we talking in geologic or human timescales?
archelon2001@reddit
The ice shelf is what is breaking away soon. Within the next few years. Think of it as like a buttress reinforcing the glacier behind it. Without the ice shelf supporting it, the glacier is a lot more unstable and starts to flow into the ocean more rapidly, leading to a greater loss of ice. Once this process begins it is impossible to stop it. But the glacier is massive, so the full collapse of the glacier itself will take hundreds of years.
filmguy36@reddit
Hundreds of years right now. The earth is going to heat up that much more with the super El Niño and couple that with the general increase in co2, more than likely it’ll happen sooner than that
filmguy36@reddit
Right next to the thwaites is the pine glacier. Think of it as its younger sibling. That will go too.
AMOC will be fucked
bernpfenn@reddit
that is the predicted outcome ...
kingtacticool@reddit
My body is ready
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/switchsk8r:
Statement:
“It’s dramatic. I was there in 2019/2020 and when I look at the satellite images now, I don’t recognise the shelf. There are huge gashes where there used to be none,”
The ice shelf’s demise is also signalled by a dramatic speed-up in its flow rate. “It’s tripled from January 2020 to January 2026, to just over 2000 metres per year, which is nuts,” says Wild. And in the past five months, the flow has accelerated further. “It’s essentially in free fall now.”
This is concerning for future sea levels around the world. “That means more ice unloaded from Antarctica, more ice dumped into the ocean and more sea-level rise,” says Scambos, though he stresses that this isn’t an immediate crisis – rather, a slowly unfolding one that will hit home in decades. “It’s going to influence the way Thwaites evolves and how fast it gets to that point where it’s contributing 10 or 20 per cent to sea-level rise in the future.”
By 2067, it is estimated that Thwaites will be losing about 190 gigatonnes of ice per year... This is a 30 per cent increase from today’s loss from the glacier, and equivalent to the total amount of ice currently being lost from Antarctica.
tldr: Glaciers are becoming increasingly unstable and this will lead to sea level rise and, though not mentioned here, weaker glaciers cause the earth to take in more heat cause of reflectivity and exposed dark ocean. This is worsening an already bad feedback loop.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1tgzf56/the_doomsday_glaciers_giant_ice_shelf_is_about_to/omjlp2s/