

The Antarctic Ice Sheet Has Started to Collapse and Nothing Can Stop It - jhack
http://gizmodo.com/the-antarctic-ice-sheet-has-started-to-collapse-and-not-1575164209

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ggchappell
Interesting. Here's the abstract from the Joghin-Smith-Medley paper[1] in
_Science_ (the text of the paper itself is behind a paywall -- boo!):

> Resting atop a deep marine basin, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has long been
> considered prone to instability. Using a numerical model, we investigate the
> sensitivity of Thwaites Glacier to ocean melt and whether unstable retreat
> is already underway. Our model reproduces observed losses when forced with
> ocean melt comparable to estimates. Simulated losses are moderate (<0.25 mm
> per year sea level) over the 21st Century, but generally increase
> thereafter. Except possibly for the lowest-melt scenario, the simulations
> indicate early-stage collapse has begun. Less certain is the timescale, with
> onset of rapid (> 1 mm per year of sea-level rise) collapse for the
> different simulations within the range of two to nine centuries.

[1]
[https://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/05/12/science....](https://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/05/12/science.1249055)

