Dramatic change in West Antarctic ice could produce 16ft rise in sea level

[indigobusiness]

West Antarctic Ice Sheet Could Collapse

By Michael McCarthy
Environment Editor
The Independent - UK
2-2-5

British scientists have discovered a new threat to the world which may be a result of global warming. Researchers from the Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have discovered that a massive Antarctic ice sheet previously assumed to be stable may be starting to disintegrate, a conference on climate change heard yesterday. Its collapse would raise sea levels around the earth by more than 16 feet.

BAS staff are carrying out urgent measurements of the remote points in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) where they have found ice to be flowing into the sea at the enormous rate of 250 cubic kilometres a year, a discharge alone that is raising global sea levels by a fifth of a millimetre a year.

Professor Chris Rapley, the BAS director, told the conference at the UK Meteorological Office in Exeter, which was attended by scientists from all over the world, that their discovery had reactivated worries about the ice sheet's collapse.

Only four years ago, in the last report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), worries that the ice sheet was disintegrating were firmly dismissed.

Professor Rapley said: "The last IPCC report characterised Antarctica as a slumbering giant in terms of climate change. I would say it is now an awakened giant. There is real concern."

snip

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=606845

[On the Road]

1. Holy Shit! What Happened to the...

three- or four-foot change in sea level which was supposedly the worst-case scenario for global warming?

[benburch]

3. That was Greenland.

ADD that to this 16' change.

[Wilms]

2. Thanks, sort of, for posting. n/t

:scared:

[Dcitizen]

4. Serious issue. When will this possible happen?

NASA just predicted 2005 much warmer.