<
https://theconversation.com/ice-world-antarcticas-riskiest-glacier-is-under-assault-from-below-and-losing-its-grip-178828>
"Flying over Antarctica, it’s hard to see what all the fuss is about. Like a
gigantic wedding cake, the frosting of snow on top of the world’s largest ice
sheet looks smooth and unblemished, beautiful and perfectly white. Little
swirls of snow dunes cover the surface.
But as you approach the edge of the ice sheet, a sense of tremendous underlying
power emerges. Cracks appear in the surface, sometimes organized like a
washboard, and sometimes a complete chaos of spires and ridges, revealing the
pale blue crystalline heart of the ice below.
As the plane flies lower, the scale of these breaks steadily grows. These are
not just cracks, but canyons large enough to swallow a jetliner, or spires the
size of monuments. Cliffs and tears, rips in the white blanket emerge,
indicating a force that can toss city blocks of ice around like so many wrecked
cars in a pileup. It’s a twisted, torn, wrenched landscape. A sense of movement
also emerges, in a way that no ice-free part of the Earth can convey – the
entire landscape is in motion, and seemingly not very happy about it.
Antarctica is a continent comprising several large islands, one of them the
size of Australia, all buried under a 10,000-foot-thick layer of ice. The ice
holds enough fresh water to raise sea level by nearly 200 feet.
Its glaciers have always been in motion, but beneath the ice, changes are
taking place that are having profound effects on the future of the ice sheet –
and on the future of coastal communities around the world."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
