SAVE OUR PLANET - New research sheds light on Antarctica's melting Pine Island Glacier

SAVE OUR PLANET... Western Antarctic ice shelf found to be disintegrating. In just the past several years, estimates of Antarctica's melt rate, translating to sea level rise, have gone from nearly zero to becoming more significant and growing. Scientists most recently have found that Western Antarctica is contributing approximately 10% to observed global sea level rise, with one of Antarctica's largest glaciers being a significant source. In an effort to identify the causes and risks, a team led by the British Antarctic Survey sent an unmanned submarine beneath Western Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier to measure ice melt in terms of the ocean water's salinity, temperature and oxygen concentrations. The submarine unexpectedly found that the glacier was no longer connected to an underwater ridge that had been slowing the flow of ice into the sea. Instead, warm sea water has been entering the cavity created over the ridge and eroding the glacier from below. The Pine Island Glacier is thus one of the continent's fastest melting and is thinning four times more quickly than it was 10 years ago. These findings confirmed concerns that this glacier is actually a weak point in the region's integrity, and that a real collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet could add five meters to sea level rise.

Our thanks, British Antarctic Survey and scientists, for these factual and alarming observations of West Antarctica. Let us all awaken us all to the importance of taking urgent steps to address our vulnerable environment and restore the Earth's balance.

Ever concerned for humanity's welfare, Supreme Master Ching Hai has often spoken of global warming's threat to our survival while at the same time reminding of how to avoid calamity, as during a November 2009 videoconference in Washington, DC, USA.

Videoconference with Supreme Master Ching Hai
Washington, D.C., USA -- November 8, 2009

Supreme Master Ching Hai: The West Antarctic Ice Shelf is also melting, with 3.3 meter sea level rises forecast that would threaten cities like your country, New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. And if all of Antarctica and Greenland were to melt -- meaning the ice -- then the sea levels could rise to as much as 70 meters, which would be deadly or disastrous to most lives on Earth.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: I pray day and night that the divine manifest in the physical realm and wake up the leaders of our nations, wake up the religious heads, wake up everybody in time so that they understand the urgency of our situation, and that they understand the solution of solving this dangerous crisis that is facing us. That is, we have to turn back to our caring and compassionate nature inside our heart. Being vegan worldwide is the advancement of compassion that will uplift and unify all cultures, and create a harmonious Eden on Earth.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• SAVE OUR PLANET
• New research
• sheds
• light
• Antarctica's
• melting
• Pine Island Glacier
• Western Antarctica
• climate change
• West Antarctic Ice Shelf
• global warming
• water's salinity
• oxygen concentrations
• temperature
• British Antarctic Survey
• humanity's welfare
• vegan

[isawanangel2]

thanks so much, i have irrational fears about this one busting up