Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 43

The world of the evolving textbook

Regular readers know that I do not approach science like true believers approach religion.

Or like some scientists approach scientific dogma.

These people, like R.E.M., should get over into a corner and lose their religion and their dogma.

That includes even the movie-star-like celebrities such as St. Darwin and St. Dawkins (genes are not alive Richard, and one imaginary race is not superior to another Chuck).

I have written about some of their erroneous assertions that have been placed into textbooks, delighting marketers of textbooks as well as owners of used book stores.

You know, those who struggle with planned obsolescence and new inventory (e.g. Throw The Textbook Out, Buy Stock In Textbook Companies!, Textbooks - An Endangered Species?, Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 42, The Appendix of Vestigial Textbooks).

It has happened again:

In a stunning discovery that overturns decades of textbook teaching, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined that the brain is directly connected to the immune system by vessels previously thought not to exist.

(Neuroscience News). One wonders if this will have a domino effect of the usual sort, that is, will it also generate change within other textbooks (cf Nature, Raw Story, The Scientist).

Textbooks such as those that opine about why circles of American skulls are bubbling up (The Skulls They Are A Changin') like our housing market and the stock market do from time to time, due to bubbleosophy (Economists - Aliens From Cygnus?).

Or, like those which explain how hate speech gives bigots a big head because it creates a hysterical amygdala which outgrows arguably more important areas of their brains:

Chronic stress also does bad things to the nervous system. Stress kills neurons in the part of the brain called the hippocampus and weakens

the cables between neurons, so they can’t talk to each other. This impairs the formation and retrieval of long-term memory. The opposite thing happens in the amygdala, which is where we see fear in a brain scanner. In the hippocampus, stress causes stuff to shrivel up. But stress feeds the amygdala. It actually gets bigger. Chronic stress creates a hyper-reactive, hysterical amygdala, and this tells us tons about what stress has to do with anxiety disorders.

(Abiotic Evolution: Can It Explain An Origin For The Toxins of Power? - 3). Which is a bit like running for president in the right-wing primaries.

Anyway, have a nice weekend all curled up and stuff with a textbook or two.

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Textbooks will have to be changed concerning coastlines. Maps too. According to the speaker in the video below, for every 1 ft of sea level rise, the coastline moves inland an average of 300 feet:

"Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’"

(Bob Dylan, 1963).

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From An Editor of the Guardian

I received an informative email from an editor of The Guardian newspaper.

It is a British newspaper, so I wanted to share the message since it was sent to thousands of Guardian readers (not a private email).

Check out today's video following the email.

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Dear Dredd,

On Friday, I stepped down as editor of the Guardian. Six months ago, when I announced my decision, I said I had only one regret – that we had not treated climate change with the gravity and impact it deserves. Keep it in the Ground has been our attempt to change that.

When I started 20 years ago, creating such a project would not have been possible. At the time, we were debating whether we should switch to using colour photography in the paper. Now with two-thirds of our readership outside the UK, virtually all our readers can be publishers themselves – while we publish continuously.

Of course, the Guardian is much bigger than any one editor. A rival kindly took me out to lunch soon after I started and reassured me: "If I take a day off, there are six assistant editors who have a completely different view of what my paper should be. If you take the day off, the building itself would produce the Guardian."

In many ways, it is the readers that have produced this campaign. You have signed petitions, written heartfelt letters to the Wellcome Trust and filmed yourself for inspiring videos asking Bill Gates to take a lead on climate change.

However you have contributed, I wanted to write and thank you. Your voices have have brought far more insight, energy and diversity than we could have hoped to achieve on our own. They have been one of the trademarks of Keep it in the Ground.

There are now more than 216,000 of you, from 170 countries around the world. That's quite a movement. The team would like to see your photos, videos and stories about how you continue to campaign against climate change. You can send them in here.

In six months time, leaders from around the world will meet in Paris to negotiate a new global deal on climate change. As we head towards that, we hope your voices will remain strong. In the coming weeks, the campaign team will be in touch about what Keep it in the Ground will look like as we head towards Paris.

But from me, thank you. It has been remarkable.

Alan

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A video which supports Alan's thoughts:

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The Question Is: How Much Acceleration Is Involved In SLR - 6?

Arm of Ericsfjord, on which Eric the Red had his farm
(Dale Mackenzie Brown)

It is still a mystery what happened to the culture started by Eric the Red in southern Greenland (The Fate of Greenland's Vikings).

They set up shop near a volcano that, as far as we know, last had a bona fide eruption 2,200 years ago (Operation IceBridge).

That major eruption was before their time, but it could have eventually scared them off if it rumbled a bit during their 500 year stay.

Anyway, it is evidently no longer a mystery what happened to some large lakes on the surface of the ice sheet of Greenland.

Large lakes, some of which generated as much flow as "Niagara Falls."

But, as the saying goes, the lakes disappeared "in a heartbeat" in recent years:

Due to meltwater, lakes form atop the ice sheet in the summer – scientists call them “supraglacial lakes” — and they can grow to be quite large. And in July 2006, one large lake, over 2 square miles in area, suddenly vanished. It lost most of its water in under two hours – researchers calculated that the rate of drainage “exceeded the average flow rate over Niagara Falls.”

(Washington Post, H/T Randy, emphasis added). These events are part of a potential acceleration engine that includes moulins:

"Water-driven fracture propagation beneath supraglacial lakes rapidly transports large volumes of surface meltwater to the base of the Greenland Ice Sheet. These drainage events drive transient ice-sheet acceleration and establish conduits for additional surface-to-bed meltwater transport for the remainder of the melt season. Although it is well established that cracks must remain water-filled to propagate to the bed the precise mechanisms that initiate hydro-fracture events beneath lakes are unknown. Here we show that, for a lake on the western Greenland Ice Sheet,

The vanishing lakes mystery solved?

drainage events are preceded by a 6–12 hour period of ice-sheet uplift and/or enhanced basal slip. Our observations from a dense Global Positioning System (GPS) network allow us to determine the distribution of meltwater at the ice-sheet bed before, during, and after three rapid drainages in 2011–2013, each of which generates tensile stresses that promote hydro-fracture beneath the lake. We hypothesize that these precursors are associated with the introduction of meltwater to the bed through neighbouring moulin systems (vertical conduits connecting the surface and base of the ice sheet). Our results imply that as lakes form in less crevassed, interior regions of the ice sheet, where water at the bed is currently less pervasive, the creation of new surface-to-bed conduits caused by lake-draining hydro-fractures may be limited."

(Nature, 6/3/15, emphasis added). Regular readers will remember that I hypothesized the same thing (moulin induced acceleration) in a previous post:

Some of those streams of rapidly flowing water abruptly disappear when they empty into a giant sink hole in the ice sheet, sink holes that are officially called "moulins."

The strange thing is that it is not perfectly certain what happens to the water when it enters those moulins, other than the water disappears deep down into the ice sheet.

There is speculation that a large lake or lakes is the final destination, rather than the ocean.

More study is being done.

The destination determines sea level rise (SLR), because if the water stays in a sub-glacial lake, there will be no SLR at that time.

There will be no SLR related to that event until that lake flows into the sea.

One fear is that such a flow could take place at once en masse, which could cause not only SLR, but also serious damage to the ice sheet itself (similar to this, but larger).

All that could lead to an acceleration in SLR that would at first be slower than expected, but later it could suddenly exceed normal melting and normal flowing into the sea ...

(The Question Is: How Much Acceleration Is Involved In SLR? - 4, 5/1/15). It is looking more and more like the ice will melt to the point where the ice sheet will go the way of Eric the Red.

Joining the sheet concurrently will be the ports and major sections of cities south of Greenland (The 1% May Face The Wrath of Sea Level Rise First).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization - 3

Fig. 1 East Coast Ground Zero

I. Some Background

Regular readers know that recent posts have covered the coming invasion of the East Coast of the United States by sea level rise (SLR).

We don't know if that is happening because the U.S. Military has taken Dredd Blog's advice to invade ourselves, because that is probably the only way to get rotting U.S. infrastructure repaired (every nation we invade gets billions for repairs, so we might as well invade ourselves and get it over with: War - Great Stimulant - Let's Invade us, 2).

Anyway, to read more about SLR areas already covered by those Dredd Blog posts, click here ("Series Posts" tab link), then arrow down to the "SEA LEVEL RISE" link area.

II. Even More Ice Streams

In those previous posts we covered various sources of SLR in ice streams, but we need to continue to keep a general focus on them, because there are a lot of ice streams in Antarctica (List of Antarctic ice streams).

So, today we will cover a different ice stream source in an area where ice loss has doubled, the Antarctic (BBC).

Fig. 2 USGS (click to enlarge)

Specifically, we will look closely at only a few ice streams there, as we have already closely looked at ice streams elsewhere (Greenland & Antarctica Invade The United States).

Then, we will zoom in to focus on two ice streams in a specific area, the Amundsen Sea Embayment, which engenders the Thwaites Ice Stream and the Pine Island Ice Stream (a.k.a. glaciers).

The reason I have chosen those two ice stream glaciers is because they are accelerating substantially, and they have enough SLR potential to qualify as an area of interest (Antarctic glacial melt rate triples in Amundsen Sea embayment).

III. Our Area of Interest Is 1 meter / 3 feet of SLR

Fig. 3 Amundsen Sea Embayment

The entire Antarctic Peninsula, if all ice melted and entered the sea, would only generate 1.51 feet of SLR (see Fig. 2).

However, if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to do the same, it would generate 26.44 feet of SLR (again, see Fig. 2).

Thus, only about 11% (3 ÷ 26.44) of that potential is needed to cause SLR of 3 ft / 1m, the threshold level I am using as a point to focus on (that figure is based on the statement by scientists, in the video below, that a 1m / 3ft SLR would be catastrophic to coastal areas).

Including the East Coast area that already has 1.5 feet of SLR (see Fig. 1).

IV. The Nitty Gritty

Over a year has passed since the paper referred to in the following quote was published:

"A massive glacier system in West Antarctica has started collapsing because of global warming and will contribute to significant worldwide sea-level rise, two teams of scientists warn in a pair of major studies released Monday.

Scientists had previously thought the two-mile-thick (3.2 kilometers) glacier system would remain stable for thousands of years, but new research suggests a faster time frame for melting.

A rapidly melting section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in irreversible decline and will sink into the sea, scientists at the University of California, Irvine and NASA reported Monday.

"This retreat will have major implications for sea-level rise worldwide," said Eric Rignot, a UC-Irvine Earth science professor and lead author of a study to be published in a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
...
The glaciers contain enough ice to raise global sea level by 4 feet (1.2 meters) and are melting faster than most scientists had expected, which will require adjusting estimates of sea-level rise, said Rignot, who is also a glaciologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California."

(National Geographic, emphasis added). Those two glaciers only need to melt / calve 75% of their potential in order to engender 1m / 3ft SLR (3 ÷ 4 = 0.75).

V. The Odds Are Against Us

These two glaciers alone can contribute more than 1m / 3 ft of SLR necessary to cause a global catastrophe, but they are definitely not the only SLR game in town:

To spark our interest, and bind ourselves to a sober view of this phenomenon which is called "The Biggest Story in the World" (according to a worldwide circulation news source), first consider the following quote from the video below:

2:43 - "One meter [of SLR] would be a global catastrophic event, 3 meters would remap the world as we know it?"

2:50 - "Yes, absolutely."

(emphasis added). This allows us to focus our attention on 1m / 3ft. of SLR, because it would be "a global catastrophic event."

The delicacy of the issue can be seen ... by realizing that only 1.14% of the global ice volume needs to melt to get us there (3 ft ÷ 263.5 ft. = 0.011385 = 1.14%).

The overall invader needs to use only 1.14% of its forces to accomplish the invasion.
...
If a small portion of one glacier (the Totten Glacier) in East Antarctica melts, or otherwise slides into the sea, the same will happen:

...
"How little it will take can also easily be seen by a statement from a scientist who is studying those locations closely and regularly:

'One of them, Totten glacier, holds the equivalent of seven metres of global sea level.' [a lower estimate is "at least" 3.3 metres here]

(Dr. Rignot East Antarctica glaciers, cf. Totten Glacier Melting). The percentage of that one glacier which needs to melt to cause 3 ft. / 1 m. of SLR is: 1÷7 = 0.142857143 = 14.3%."

(Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization). That is a slim margin, because the Totten Glacier is showing signs of decomposition (Nature).
...
The NEGIS is 16% of the entire GIS, JI is 8%, while KG & HG are at ~2% each.

These four entities make up 28% of the total ice in the GIS.

The entire GIS represents 21.49 ft. of SLR (Fig. 2), so 28% of that is (21.49 × .28) 6.02 feet.

Which means that only half of that amount (14%) is needed to reach "3 ft. / 1 m. of SLR."

(Greenland & Antarctica Invade The United States). There are many more ice streams to consider, but you get the point (they are all melting in some degree at the same time NOW).

VI. Don't Wait For The Models

The scientists keep saying (and I keep quoting them) that the models are seriously underestimating SLR.

That means catastrophic SLR is closer than we think, and far more certain than we have been told.

SLR is on the march, and there are no defenses other than leaving the fossil fuels in the ground, going code red for renewable, non-polluting energy sources, and waiting to see if it works or not (i.e. are we already too late?).

It would not hurt at all in the long run, to consider shutting down civilization as we know it for awhile (if we don't SLR will).

VII. Conclusion

Now you know why the "pessimists" (a.k.a. realists) are winning most of the bets on this issue, and why I am repeating some of this information ad nauseum.

We really need to get this particular point, because it is happening, and it is even a matter of law.

Law, one of the slowest areas to get much of anything that is current (Global Warming Induced Climate Change Is A Matter of Law, Public Trust Litigation).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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HBO Vice: "Our Rising Oceans", with Dr. Eric Rignot:

2:43 - "One meter [of SLR] would be a global catastrophic event, 3 meters would remap the world as we know it?"

2:50 - "Yes, absolutely."

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Greenland & Antarctica Invade The United States

Fig. 1 Ice Streams of Greenland

I. Introduction

The Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS) drains about 16% of all the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) as depicted at Fig. 1.

The Jakobshavn Ice Stream (JI) drains about half of the NEGIS quantity (Northeast Greenland Ice Loss Accelerating).

Regular readers will note that Dredd Blog System has recently posted several pieces concerning the impact of Greenland on the Northeast U.S. from Cape Cod, MA south to Cape Hatteras, NC (e.g.The Question Is: How Much Acceleration Is Involved In SLR - 5?).

The gist of the subject matter is that catastrophic sea level rise (SLR) is much, much closer, in time and in geography, than is being reported in U.S. mainstream media.

II. The Invasion Forces

A. The Global Axis of Ice

Fig. 2 USGS (click to enlarge)

To spark our interest, and bind ourselves to a sober view of this phenomenon which is called "The Biggest Story in the World" (according to a worldwide circulation news source), first consider the following quote from the video below:

2:43 - "One meter [of SLR] would be a global catastrophic event, 3 meters would remap the world as we know it?"

2:50 - "Yes, absolutely."

(emphasis added). This allows us to focus our attention on 1m / 3ft. of SLR, because it would be "a global catastrophic event."

The delicacy of the issue can be seen (Fig. 2) by realizing that only 1.14% of the global ice volume needs to melt to get us there (3 ft ÷ 263.5 ft. = 0.011385 = 1.14%).

The overall invader needs to use only 1.14% of its forces to accomplish the invasion.

B. Invasion Forces from Antarctica

If a small portion of one glacier (the Totten Glacier) in East Antarctica melts, or otherwise slides into the sea, the same will happen:

Fig. 3 Totten Glacier, Antarctica

"How little it will take can also easily be seen by a statement from a scientist who is studying those locations closely and regularly:

'One of them, Totten glacier, holds the equivalent of seven metres of global sea level.'

(Dr. Rignot East Antarctica glaciers, cf. Totten Glacier Melting). The percentage of that one glacier which needs to melt to cause 3 ft. / 1 m. of SLR is: 1÷7 = 0.142857143 = 14.3%."

(Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization). That is a slim margin, because the Totten Glacier is showing signs of decomposition (Nature).

C. Invasion Forces from Greenland

In Section I, above, several ice streams and/or glaciers are discussed and shown, along with the path they are taking to the sea (Fig. 1).

The NEGIS is 16% of the entire GIS, JI is 8%, while KG & HG are at ~2% each.

These four entities make up 28% of the total ice in the GIS.

The entire GIS represents 21.49 ft. of SLR (Fig. 2), so 28% of that is (21.49 × .28) 6.02 feet.

Which means that only half of that amount (14%) is needed to reach "3 ft. / 1 m. of SLR."

III. The Odds of "Victory"

A. Considering All of the Invasion Forces

Some East Coast areas of the U.S. are half way to "3 ft. / 1 m. of SLR" already
(Will This Float Your Boat - 10, Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization - 2).

Thus, the percentage of global ice that has to melt to get us to "a global catastrophic event" in that area is now one half of what it was.

In Section II.A above, that global percentage is expressed as 1.14%, so  (1.14% ÷ 2) = 0.57% (less than 1% until D-Day SLR day).

That is to say, when 0.57% more of global ice melts and its ice or water reaches the sea, the invasion of the U.S. East Coast will be accomplished.

B. Considering Only the Totten Glacier Invasion Force

In Section II.B above, it was pointed out that "3 ft. / 1 m. of SLR" would be attained if only 14.3% of one glacier in Antarctica reaches the sea.

Since we are already half-way there, the remaining percentage is (14.3% ÷ 2 ) 7.15%.

C. Considering Only the Ice Streams of Greenland

In Section II.C above, it was pointed out that "3 ft. / 1 m. of SLR" would be attained on the East Coast of the U.S. if only 14% of Greenland ice streams reach the sea.

D. Considering The Combined Invasion Forces

Since we were looking at those ice melt events individually, as separate, singular occurrences, consider the reality that all of these SLR causing ice melt events are happening at the same time.

Now!

That is, all the mentioned ice streams in Greenland, as well as the Totten Glacier in Antarctica, are already melting at the same time.

Add to that, the fact that many, many other glaciers in both Greenland and Antarctica, that were not mentioned, are also part of the invasion forces of melting ice induced SLR.

IV. Why?

The reason this is happening is because current civilization is not complying with the Tenets of Ecocosmology.

Therefore current civilization is failing The Test (ibid).

Our civilization is lost in space, living on a planet that is not understood sufficiently (You Are Here).

V. Conclusion

Since the U.S. is relentlessly invading the Arctic as well as beginning offshore Atlantic Ocean drilling (Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder), thereby perpetuating the criminal epoch (The Criminally Insane Epoch Arises), the response of Mother Nature is to continue her invasion (Arctic Sea Ice in Uncharted Territory, Sleeping Giant in the Arctic).

Don't die for it

Resistance is futile (Why The Military Can't Defend Against The Invasion).

The SLR victory over the U.S. will not be pretty (Will This Float Your Boat - 10, 9, Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization, 2).

Urge your congressional representatives and the president to surrender now.

Leave it in the ground (LINGO).

Turn around, don't drown (TADD).

The next post in this series is here.

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HBO Vice: "Our Rising Oceans", with Dr. Eric Rignot:

2:43 - "One meter [of SLR] would be a global catastrophic event, 3 meters would remap the world as we know it?"

2:50 - "Yes, absolutely."

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