Wednesday, April 17, 2019

How High's the Water Mama?

Sometimes the best intentions come to naught. Take all the recent fuss over global warming. Even if everyone came together to prevent cars and cows from giving off greenhouse gases, it may not help, due to an interesting fact uncovered in February 1993.

At that time a team of geophysicists led by Donald Blankenship (University of Texas) and Robin Bell (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) were flying over the Antarctic ice sheet south of Marie Byrd Land. Three hundred miles in from the Ross Ice Shelf, they noted a four-mile-wide depression. They flew back, using radar to penetrate the ice, and discovered a 2,100 foot mountain. They measured the peak's magnetic field and found "the strong signal characteristic of iron-rich volcanic rock." In other words, there was an active volcano beneath the Antarctic ice -- probably more than one, as the area is a rift valley, like the infamous Atlantic Ridge.

Oddly, the problem is not that the icecap might melt. Not even a volcano could do that. But it could melt the lowest layer of ice, which would then mix with the sediment base, which would erode away. The western ice sheet might then collapse into the sea. According to science writer Robert Naeye, "if it did, the global sea level would rise about 20 feet, and coastal cities will be flooded."

This is not to say we should let greenhouse gases spew into the atmosphere at our hearts' desire, but . . . Someday I intend to move from my apartment of ten years habitation, and when I do, it will be to someplace inland. And high.


Naeye, Robert, "The Strangest Volcano," Discover vol. 15, no. 1, January 1994.

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