Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization - 6

"The Doomsday Glacier"

Some regular and even some un-regular readers must wonder why Dredd Blog focuses on Antarctica so much.

They may wonder that because the ocean is vast.

But, the Southern Ocean which surrounds Antarctica is a small portion of the global ocean.

Don't feel left out, because it was not too very long ago that I found out too ... I found out why I had to change my focus too ... so ... you are not alone.

When I found out "the reason" it surprised me too:

This is why we need this focus:

"The vast Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, plays a starring role in the future of climate change. The global oceans together absorb over 90 percent of the excess heat in the climate system and roughly three-quarters of that heat uptake occurs in the Southern Ocean. In addition, the global oceans absorb around 25 percent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and the Southern Ocean alone accounts for about half of the uptake of CO2.

Despite its critical role in our climate system, the Southern Ocean has gone almost completely unobserved. Scientists have struggled to gather precise measurements because of the harsh environment and extreme remoteness. The changing dynamics of the Southern Ocean will in turn drive key aspects of our future climate, including how sensitive the Earth will be to further warming and increases in carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, improved observations are crucial to helping scientists understand and predict how our climate will change."

(Antarctica 2.0 - 3, quoting Climate Central). When the sea level is rising and the net result of thermal expansion / contraction totals is a minor player, [a small number], then melting tidewater glaciers and other melting ice in the Cryosphere quite obviously must be the major player.

(On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction - 36, emphasis added). Another reason for such coverage can also be scary:

"Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is so remote that only 28 human beings have ever set foot on it.

Knut Christianson, a 33-year-old glaciologist at the University of Washington, has been there twice.

A few years ago, Christianson and a team of seven scientists traveled more than 1,000 miles from McMurdo Station, the main research base in Antarctica, to spend six weeks on Thwaites ...

They were mapping a future global disaster. As the world warms, determining exactly how quickly ice melts and seas rise may be one of the most important questions of our time ... If there is going to be a climate catastrophe ... it's probably going to start at Thwaites. The trouble with Thwaites, which is one of the largest glaciers on the planet, is that ...  instead of melting slowly like an ice cube on a summer day, it is more like a house of cards: It's stable until it is pushed too far, then it collapses... Seas will rise about 10 feet in many parts of the world; in New York and Boston, because of the way gravity pushes water around the planet, the waters will rise even higher, as much as 13 feet ... West Antarctica could do to the coastlines of the world what Hurricane Sandy did in a few hours to New York City," explains Richard Alley ... Except when the water comes in, it doesn't go away in a few hours – it stays."

(The Doomsday Glacier, emphasis added). So, what does that have to do with sea ports and flat landers?

Flat landers like to eat, drink, be merry, and pass it on to their progeny, but these habits have now become entwined with world sea ports:

"By volume, more than 95 percent of U.S. international trade moves through the nation's ports and harbors, with about 50 percent of these goods being hazardous materials."

(NOAA PORTS, emphasis added; cf. Ports & Harbors). Dredd Blog has been pointing that out for a while (Will This Float Your Boat?, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14) because McTell News and the U.S. government is reluctant to do so (Blind Willie McTell News, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

As Dredd Blog has pointed out, you flat landers (who think you will cheer when those "it can't happen here" elitists who live on the coast get their comeuppance) have no idea what will happen when civilization's sea ports go down (Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization, 2, 3, 4, 5).

I will continue to watch the Southern Ocean (Antarctica 2.0, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 [& supplements A, B, C, D, E, F]) because You Are Here with me.

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