From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Jul 02 2001 - 07:47:43 MDT
hal@finney.org wrote:
>
> On Sun, 1 Jul 2001, Spike Jones wrote:
>
> > Even the most wild-eyed greenhouse theorist would
> > estimate the sea rise would take a few thousand years.
>
> There is another scenario which has been kicked around, which is that
> somehow a substantial part of the Antarctic ice sheet could slide into
> the ocean. See http://www.serve.com/commonpurpose/news/nytpolarice.html
> and http://www.eces.org/articles/static/98100720023962.shtml for a
> couple of sample articles. One scenario is that the West Antarctic
> sheet would disintegrate, raising sea levels about 15-20 feet over a
> period of perhaps 500 years.
>
> It's harder to see it happening with the East Antarctic ice sheet,
> as it is grounded above sea level unlike the West which is grounded on
> rock below sea level, making it slide more easily. But it hasn't been
> ruled out as a possibility.
If those links are based on research at the U of W, their work was
disproven by my cousin Andrew's work last year, I believe. They now know
for a fact that the East Antarctic ice sheet has been stable over the
last 22 million years, ever since it first formed as that continent slid
into place at the pole, and has resisted far more significant changes in
temperature than what is predicted by the nuts at the UN. Moreover,
there are significant models that show that the while West sheet *may*
increase its sliding potential with warming, any amount of warming that
would cause that would also cause an increase in precipitation at the
pole, most of which would wind up on the East sheet, i.e. a more secure
location, which would counteract ANY increase in loss of above sea level
ice on the West sheet.
Claims about the West sheet being undermined are also incredibly naive:
think about it for a minute: there are thousands of meters of ice above
sea level pressing down on the ice, displacing any water that occus
below it with thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch. Vostok's
water only exists because it is in a depression with noplace to go.
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