Warm water threatens vast Anatarctic ice shelf

A new study indicates that a large ice sheet is at risk. Warm water from below is causing it to melt.

Scientists are predicting the disappearance of another vast ice shelf in Antarctica by the end of the century that will accelerate rising sea levels.

Skip to next paragraph

The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf fringing the Weddell Sea on the eastern side of Antarctica has so far not seen ice loss from global warming and much of the observation of melting has focused on the western side of the continent around the Amundsen Sea. But new research from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany says the 450,000-sq-km ice shelf is under threat.

“According to our calculations, this protective barrier will disintegrate by the end of this century,” said Dr Harmut Hellmer, lead author of the study, published in the journal Nature this week.

The huge ice shelves that float on the seas fringing Antarctica provide a buffer against warming waters eating away at the base of the much larger glaciers behind them that sit on the land.

“Ice shelves are like corks in the bottles for the ice streams behind them,” said Hellmer. “They reduce the ice flow.

“If, however, the ice shelves melt from below, they become so thin that the dragging surfaces become smaller and the ice behind them starts to move.”

Hellmer and his team predict the melting of the Filchner-Ronne shelf could add up to 4.4 mm per year to rising global sea levels.

According to the latest estimates based on remote sensing data, global sea levels rose 1.5 mm a year between 2003 and 2010 due to melting glaciers and ice shelves, the scientists say. This is on top of an estimated 1.7 mm annual rise due to the expansion of the oceans as the water warms.

Costly Sea Defences

The research was funded by the European Union’s ?Ice2sea’ program, set up in the wake of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that highlighted ice-sheets as the most significant remaining uncertainty in projections of rising sea levels. Projections from the Ice2sea project will feed into the fifth IPCC report due in 2013/2014.

It will also inform plans for major capital spending on sea defenses to protect Europe’s coastlines, particularly areas of economic importance like London, with its tidal barrier on the River Thames, and the port of Rotterdam. A large part of the Netherlands is below sea level and protected by an elaborate system of dykes.

Professor David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey, who heads the Ice2sea program, told Reuters the Alfred Wegener Institute’s findings add to evidence that warming oceans are having the greatest impact on the ice sheets, as opposed to atmospheric changes or the legacy of some long-term change decades or even hundreds of years ago.

“What people need to know with a sense of urgency is what is going to happen to sea levels over the next few decades,” said Vaughan. “In those terms, these results are very big news indeed.”

Vaughan is cautious about precise projections of the impact on sea levels. “For me, those numbers are about what might be plausible,” he said. “I think we need to do some more work with the ice sheet models to determine exactly what sea level rises we might expect, but those are plausible numbers.”

All other things being equal, the polar ice sheets reach a balance where the amount of snow going in each year is broadly matched by the number of icebergs coming out, but subtle changes like those associated with global warming, can affect that balance quite rapidly.

Vaughan said there was clear evidence that the widely-reported disintegration of the Larsen A and Larsen B ice shelves in 1995 and 2002 respectively, had led to the ice sheets that fed them moving faster into the sea, some of them many times the rate seen before collapse.

The scientific focus on the melting ice in the Amundsen sea is down to the fact that this is where it is happening now, but Vaughan said although the Weddell

Sea is not seeing ice loss at the moment, the German research supports the view that it will spread to other areas.

If there is a lesson for climate scientists, it’s “don’t behave like the infant school football team and follow the ball,” he said.

dez bryant aaliyah golden globe winners the express zappos hacked jane fonda morgan freeman

Google Drive for Android: Just About as Good as the Rest

Keep Everything. Share Anything. When a company like Google uses a tagline that includes the words “share anything” for a Dropbox-like cloud file storage system, my immediate reaction is “with whom?” Google, after-all, is a company that’s made its money delivering ads based on what it learns about our habits. There’s been debate about this very question since Drive launched.

super bowl commercials florida primary 2012 super bowl matthew broderick tax refund calculator huntington disease west memphis three

ShopAndroid Daily Giveaway #69: Barely There Case for LG Revolution, OtterBox 2000 & more

Today's ShopAndroid.com Daily Giveaway will feature the Case-Mate Barely There Case for LG Revolution, OtterBox 2000 Series Case, Body Glove Snap-On Case for Sanyo Zio, and the Mobi Crystal Case for T-Mobile myTouch 4G.

Take a moment to check out our hands-on videos with each accessory and be sure to leave your comment telling us which item you'd like to win for your Android device.  One lucky person will be selected as the winner of today's giveaway and announced next week!

Case-Mate Barely There Case for LG Revolution

If you're looking for a extremely slim, form fitted case for your LG Revolution, then look no further than the Case-Mate Barely There Case.  This case is made of an impact resistant flexible plastic shell, and wraps around the left and right sides of the LG Revolution.  The Barely There Case is very lightweight, moderate in protection, and easy to install and remove.

read more

iman shumpert mayweather vs cotto shumpert hopkins hopkins dear john derrick rose torn acl

Wizarding World Of Harry Potter Expanding To Japan In 2014

“Harry Potter” fans aren’t going to have to come solely to the United States to visit Hogwarts at Universal Studios anymore. Universal Studios Japan has unveiled plans to open a Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Osaka by 2014. This is the third announced Wizarding World park, and will likely be the second one to [...]

james harrison falcons giants game norman borlaug santorum new hampshire debate rupaul

Breastfeeding Group on Time Cover: Way to Be!

The Time Magazine breastfeeding cover and story on attachment parenting are A-O-K with at least one major organization, despite the ruckus it caused.

Bettina Forbes, co-founder of Best for Babes – an advocacy group dedicated to educating moms about breastfeeding – defended the controversial image.

Forbes says three is NOT too old to be breastfeeding, and that while she’d have preferred a celebrity like Jennifer Garner on the cover, it’s still great.

“We understand that Americans are uncomfortable with [the Time cover],” she told TMZ.

“However, in other cultures where babies wean themselves normally, usually somewhere around age three or four, it is perfectly acceptable.”

“Think of it this way – some cultures have been drinking green tea for millennia, yet only recently has it become popular in the United States once the health benefits were more understood and it was popularized by marketing.”

“Breastfeeding is the same thing,” she argues, since “it is accepted and valued in many cultures, but not yet fully in the U.S.”

“We’re happy with anything that is an appealing image, provokes conversation, and ultimately desensitizes people to breastfeeding.”

You tell us, THG readers: Attachment parenting …

cornucopia best buy black friday deals thanksgiving crafts matt cassel snowman playstation network down houston astros

Facebook Amends IPO S-1 To Admit Advertising Biz Hurt By Increasing Shift To Mobile

Facebook has just filed a sixth amendment to its S-1 filing to IPO in order to provide more transparency about how the shift of its user base from the web to mobile is causing it to show fewer ads per user, which could hurt revenue in the long term. ?Facebook also granted about $796 million in restricted stock units to employees less than a week ago.?I’ve excerpted the significant changes and embedded the whole S-1 below. Specifically, Facebook is warning investors that daily active user count is rising faster than the number of ads the site is showing, which it predicts will lead to a lower average revenue per user. As we noted when Facebook originally filed, it hasn’t proven its ability to monetize mobile yet. It now has Sponsored Stories ads running in the mobile news feed, but it can’t show nearly as many ads in this format as it does on the web, where it often shows four to seven ads per page, though less prominently in the sidebar.

jack white kowloon walled city ronda rousey vs miesha tate lindsay lohan snl lindsay lohan on snl real housewives of disney awakenings

Which Yoga Pose Would You Choose? | Health X Pert Articles …

Yoga is supposed to be about feeling open and blissful, but let?s face it, some pretzel-like poses don?t make us feel that way. It?s only natural to prefer certain poses and despise others, but not everyone agrees. While you might be a huge fan of inversions, your best friend might be petrified to go upside down. Keep reading to vote on which yoga poses are your faves. View Slideshow ?

More:
Which Yoga Pose Would You Choose?

steve jobs fbi file suge knight obama birth control mortgage settlement macauly culkin joe namath stefon diggs

After underwear plot, Saudi officials claim headway against AQAP

Saudi officials refused to discuss their involvement in disrupting the latest underwear bomb plot from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), but say they are making gains against the group.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen, remains a major threat but drone strikes and Saudi counterterrorism efforts are making significant headway against the franchise, say Saudi interior ministry officials.

Skip to next paragraph

Speaking to a visiting group of US journalists in Riyadh, the officials underscored the importance of US-Saudi cooperation in fighting terrorism but refused to confirm or deny reports that Saudi intelligence was involved in foiling the latest underwear bomb plot by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

?This information [about who was responsible] going out at this particular time ? doesn?t serve anyone,? said Lt. Col. Sultan Mohammed of the ministry?s counterterrorism department, who has been tracking Islamist militants since the late 1990s.

Since 9/11 and a wave of domestic terrorist attacks in the following years, the Saudi government has taken strong measures to shut down jihadis and their ideology in the country. They have arrested more than 11,000 suspected militants over the past decade, about half of whom were released while the rest are being tried in a series of cases now moving through Saudi courts. The Ministry of Interior has also instituted a broad program to prevent the spread of jihadi ideology, which includes everything from requiring licenses for religious sermons to the promotion of books and leaflets that counter militant ideology to a generously funded rehabilitation center originally started for ex-Guant?namo detainees.

Officials said today that the Saudi government had now largely ?destroyed? Al Qaeda as an organization in Saudi Arabia, wiped out public sympathy for the group, and said that drone strikes over the past year in Yemen have weakened the group there. But they remain very much aware of AQAP?s efforts to regroup in Yemen in order to launch attacks against not only the West but also the Saudi kingdom.

Formerly Al Qaeda had separate branches in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, but by early 2009 they had merged into one organization.

uganda the parent trap invisible children kony 2012 space weather sunspots pac 12 tournament sun storm

Secured vs. Unsecured Loans | All about finance & Insurance

There are many types of loans out there, but they can generally be divided into two categories: secured and unsecured loans. Some experts recommend one kind over the other, but most generally agreed that both can be good in certain situations and under certain circumstances. This latter opinion is the correct one, as there are many times when a secured loan is really the best and only options, while there are many others where it?s easier and smarter to just get an unsecured loan. How can you tell the two cases apart and make the right decision that your situation warrants? Hopefully this guide can help you to decide.

What They Mean

First of all, get an understanding of what each of these types of loans will mean for you.

Begin with secured loans: they require you to give some sort of security to ensure that repayment will be made. Oftentimes the security will be something like your house or car, or something valuable to that effect. Gold and jewelry are also used as security.

Secured loans are better in some ways because they offer lower interest rates and potentially longer repayment periods. For that reason, these loans are usually taken out for huge amounts of money and important purposes. They also require a more demanding application process, and not everyone is usually qualified to receive one of these.

Unsecured loans are a different matter. The biggest difference is in the fact that no security is required. You are given the loan because the lender (after looking at your financial history) trusts that you will repay. You don?t have to give them anything.

This also means higher interest, shorter durations, but ultimately an easier loan process. Just about anyone can qualify to get?open door loans?or other similar unsecured loans just as long as they don?t have a terrible credit history. Best of all, you can often get the money you need in a matter of days; with some loans like open door loans, that wait period can be just a few hours.

Choosing Between Secured and Unsecured

Which loan you choose depends on what you need the loan for, how big you want the loan to be, and how long you want to go without fully repaying. If you want money for only a short period of time, then get open door loans and other unsecured loans. If you want a big loan for something like an investment or a down payment, stick with the safer and longer-term option. Once you understand these two types of loans, it?s much easier to make your decision.

creutzfeldt jakob disease the lone ranger yu darvish mad cow pennsylvania primary jerome simpson hand sanitizer