British explorers in West Antarctica reported glacier movement in the region has picked up by a startling seven percent this season, a development, they said, which could lead to a significant rise in sea level.
The biggest of the glaciers, the Pine Island Glacier, is causing the most concern.
The reason does not seem to be warming in the surrounding air.
One possible culprit could be a deep ocean current that is channelled onto the continental shelf close to the mouth of the glacier. There is not much sea ice to protect it from the warm water, which seems to be undercutting the ice and lubricating its flow
Julian Scott, however, thinks there may be other forces at work as well.
Much higher up the course of the glacier there is evidence of a volcano that erupted through the ice about 2,000 years ago and the whole region could be volcanically active, releasing geothermal heat to melt the base of the ice and help its slide towards the sea.
Read more on the BBC website: 'Antarctic glaciers surge to ocean'
Well he didn't ask nicely did he. Off to the library.
The financial hub of Shanghai has had an unprecedented volume of concrete and steel placed upon it over the past 30 years. This, combined with the almost complete surface seal that removes any moisture percolation from above, makes it an ideal candidate for subsidence. Ditto Tanjin.
Meanwhile Sydney's Fort Denison has recorded minimal change over the past 60 years. Ditto Brisbane.
Still no word from Luke on his fanciful claims of PIG ice discharge.
Tilo: What book are you reading?
"In the last 30 years, the financial hub of Shanghai has seen the sea level rise 115 mm, or the length of half a chopstick, the report says.
Tianjin, a major port about two hours' drive from Beijing, has seen the level rise as much as 196 mm, about the length of a new pencil.
In the past 30 years, the country's overall sea level has risen 90 mm with the average offshore surface temperature going up by 0.9C"
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-01/16/content_6396575.htm
"and email the lead author who might know a few things."
What's the point? Sea level is rising 13 inches per century. If you are going to get 13 inches per century, something has to be melting. The big question is "so what"? The sea level rise reflects the imbalance between moisture falling on the continent and ice dumping into the sea. If the changes that occur with this glacier don't reflect in an acceleration of sea level rise, then it is irrelevant. Looking at the University of Colorado sea level chart, there is no acceleration. If anything it has lately shown deceleration. The BBCs "Surge to the Ocean" is not impressing the ocean.
No, Luke, spare us all the defamatory guff, and tell us ALL where you got the numbers from. And no photocopies of your backside, now.
You came out swinging and sneering about non-linear maths rendering my calculations wrong but neglected to point out that linear equations are routinely compared with the non-linear by way of relevance testing.
So most village idiots would be able to understand that a (linear) calculation using this year's discharge from a large ice mass which resulted in a total of 58,476 years to disappear is unlikely to be absolutely correct due to the number of variables at play. These variables obviously mean we are dealing with a non-linear equation but that is absolutely no excuse for using non-linearity to justify a complete collapse in "a few decades".
A proper approach would be to run a number of calculations with differing key variables to obtain a range of outcomes that would vary around the result obtained by a lineal equation. That is, one might say 50,000 years, another 40,000 years while another could just as easily indicate 70,000 years or never.
The lineal calculation gets us into the general "ball park" while a range of non-lineal calculations can, if conducted by people with an interest in approaching the truth, clarify the degree of potential variance.
So spare us all the smoke and mirrors.
Well against every bone in my body, as I know you'll immediately back up the fully loaded manure truck, I could send you what I have and some more if you asked politely. Won't have enough detail for you I suspect. And of course outflow isn't nett either. You could of course then do the right thing, before putting the boot in, and do a "Keeling" and email the lead author who might (even though being a climatoid scumbag lefty hell-bent on scaring the willies out of western civilisation) know a few things.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-myth-of-the-noble-scientist/2008/03/02/1204402275168.html For you lot camping out,in case it snuck under your radar.
So, no sign of Mr T and his maths. And what a breathtaking cop-out from Luke, even by his low standards.
Where did you get the "Outflow on PIG and Thwaites has increased from 215 Gt/yr in 1996 to 261 Gt/yr in 2006" numbers Luke?
The link in my post to Shepherd et al http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/pineislandglacier/figures.html#figure4
Shows the 2001 map of the PIG and outlines the boundary of the portion that is moving at 200m/year. It also includeds a scale that makes it clear the cross section is 30km and the other link to Bindschadler, http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/contenthandler.cfm?id=1277 makes it clear that the ice is only 500m thick at the grounding line.
"The site is about 35 kilometers from the calving edge of the 800-square-kilometer ice shelf. That’s close to where they expect to find the grounding line, where the warm dense ocean water hits the ice in contact with the bedrock." and went on to say, "If all goes as planned, work would begin in earnest the next two field seasons to use a hot water drill to bore through the 500-meter-thick ice and lower instruments into the ocean cavity below."
So 30km x 0.2km x 0.5km = 3km3 (3Gt) annual flow. So where did Luke get his 215 - 261Gt?