Thread on why #WeDontHaveTime

”The team calculated that the two ice sheets together lost 81 billion tons per year in the 1990s compared with 475 billion tons of ice per year in the 2010s—a sixfold increase.” https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/04/20/the-doomsday-glacier-lives-up-to-its-billing/?fbclid=IwAR2Pu-tY3hld6tIBOuzlkmmVvD94EEmf_5Mn4Kwginlo0HzfyoFYCRGR7Vw

In all honesty, this article should end right here as 475 billion tons of ice mass loss per annum versus 81 billion tons per annum within only two decades is so riveting and daunting and over the top that nothing more needs to be said. But, there is more….

That troubling signal is only a starting point of much bigger trouble down the road. Recent research conducted in West Antarctica has exposed a whole new ballgame, the prospect of collapsing glaciers, in toto, big glaciers, and big meltdowns, unbelievable but yet possible

yet largely ignored by every major country. If it were otherwise countries would be flip-flopping fossil fuels to renewables and installing mirrored technology to reflect solar radiation back to outer space

A new discovery at Thwaites is bone-chilling and nearly impossible to fathom.

The consequences of total release would be/will likely be earth-shattering as, and when, the 74,000 square mile ice block breaks lose, but even more earth-shattering yet, it could take down the entire West Antarctica Ice Sheet. That’s 10+ (3+ meters) feet of sea level rise!

“The last time the atmospheric CO2 amounts were this high was more than 3 million years ago, when temperature was 2°C–3°C (3.6°F–5.4°F) higher than during the pre-industrial era, and sea level was 15–25 meters (50–80 feet) higher than today.”

Logical question: What about sea level 50-80 feet higher back then with CO2 the same as today’s CO2? Answer: The normal time lag between increasing atmospheric CO2 and increasing temps leading to rising sea levels is one decade, or more. #WeDontHaveTime