A drop in the ocean The drop in sea level is significant enough to threaten to cause fishing ships to run aground as they come into the harbor. This blows my mind. The sea levels around Iceland are dropping for two reasons: 1) As the giant glacier on Iceland melts, the land underneath, free of the additional weight, bounces back and increases elevation. 2) As the glacier disappears, the additional mass is not there to exert a gravitational pull on the sea around Iceland, so the sea recedes. I didn't know that gravitational pull of even large objects on earth could be significant enough to affect sea levels. (I did know that a large dam at high elevation could cause the earth's rotation to slow, but only by an infinitesimally small amount.)
I lived in Iceland for three years while serving in the Navy 72-75 Incredible country Ice and Fire World's oldest democracy Northern lights .. Glaciers .. Geysers .. Volcanoes .. Earthquakes .. Mountains .. Valleys .. Hot Springs .. Waterfalls Tolkien's Lord of the Rings .. Look it up Best salmon, sheep and dairy I've ever had in my life And the Icelandic women are some of the most beautiful in the world
Or... 3) The ice layer in Antarctic is growing faster than is being widely reported.. By the way 1) is not even really a product of physics nor reasoning since dirt and rocks are far heavier than water... IOW, the land is NOT floating on the water..
There is going to be a big reckoning in the next century. I probably won't live to see it, but future generations will be stuck with the mess we are creating today. Assuming there are future generations and we don't all get nuked in the next month or so.
Reminds of me this quote, but in reverse. "The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard." Gaylord Nelson We are failing that test big time.
Isostatic rebound from the ice age is still happening on the great lakes too. So it will be thousands of years Iceland has to deal with this if the melt continues and they go down a similar path. Rise and fall of the Great Lakes - part II | Wat on Earth
Reality check: Antarctic sea ice has been growing, not shrinking And this is backed up by NASA scientists... in a 2015 article. So evidently the ice in Antarctica has been growing for a long time.. A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers. The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice. According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddar...ns-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses
The Antarctic extent has been flat (it is not growing) while the Arctic extent has been declining rapidly. As such, globally, we are seeing substantial decreases over time. Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches Record Low
I think that sea level has enough variables that it's beyond my ability to determine what is happening. I am more worried about us using the oceans as our garbage can and how that is going to impact our future.
