Saturday, 7 September 2024

'Speed Bumps' For Sea Level Rise?

Anthropogenic (human-caused) global heating is now melting glaciers over our entire planet. There's consequent concern that rises in sea level will quickly redraw the Earth's maps. Some island nations will entirely disappear. Studies with a remotely-controlled submersible are investigating what happens to Greenland's glaciers, at the point they contact the warming seas. Enormous volumes of sediment are moved with the ice. There's a consequent suggestion that these could act like 'speed bumps', slowing the rate of ice melt. They can insulate, for a period, the glacier from the heating oceans. Sea level rise might then occur more slowly than had been previously predicted (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/06/how-the-maelstrom-under-greenlands-glaciers-could-slow-future-sea-level-rise). It's obviously important to understand the dynamics of what's happening in the melting polar regions. The speed of sea level rise may be slower than expected but it seems irreversible. The hot summer of 2024, seems likely to make this year the hottest recorded thus far (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/06/hottest-summer-record). Sea temperatures are continuing to rise.

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