The Third Pole Water Line

Fig. 1 The Third Pole (cyan colored squares)

I. Cryosphere:
Third Pole

The "Third Pole" (Fig. 1) is in the news.

Pakistan (a nuclear power) has been flooded by global warming induced climate change impacts on its monsoon rains, causing "a thousand year" flood.

Fig. 2 Pakistan Floods

One result is that one third of the country is flooded, many have been killed, and a state of emergency exists (Fig. 2).

The Third Pole Website indicates that another climate change danger is that the 377,155 glaciers in the Third Pole (Fig. 1, Fig. 3) are melting at an increasing rate.

The recent photo at Fig. 2 shows a tiny portion of the flooded area (Third Pole Pakistan).

A portion of North Eastern Pakistan (e.g. Punjab) is in or near The Third Pole glacier area which is an increasing threat in several ways.

Fig. 3

The count-per-zone of Third Pole glaciers is shown in the table at Fig. 3.

Today's appendices (Appendix One, Appendix Two) contain tables that detail the number of glaciers in the World Ocean Database (WOD) Zones.

The locations of those WOD Zones are shown in Fig. 1; the glacier counts are from the GLIMS datasets.

II. Cryosphere: Antarctica

The "Doomsday Glacier" in Antarctica is catching the eye of scientists too (Thwaites Glacier).

The Thwaites glacier contains enough ice to flood seaports in certain areas like the monsoons have in Pakistan.

But when the entire Antarctic ice sheet is taken into consideration, we find that it can cause over two hundred feet of sea level change (Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization - 4).

III. Closing Comments

Some WOD Zones have experienced over three feet of sea level change already (Seaports With Sea Level Change - 25).

The poet songwriter Bob Dylan who recently was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (Congratulations To Bob Dylan - 2) was quite real before many scientists were:

"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’ "

(The Times They Are Changing, 1963). Scientists didn't appear before congress until over twenty years later to warn about global warming dangers (James Hansen’s legacy: Scientists reflect on climate change 1988).

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