Earthsky FC_IPY, Interviews
Donald Blankenship researches which ice sheets melt first
01-23-2009 - Earth
That’s research scientist Donald Blankenship at the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas. Since the late 1970’s, he’s been studying the ice sheets in Antarctica using an airborne radar system. He told EarthSky that certain ice sheets are more susceptible than others to melting.
Donald Blankenship: In particular, the ones that have their bottoms below sea level. In other words, if the ice went away, the ocean would rush in and and fill in behind them. They call them marine ice sheets. Marine ice sheets have the capacity to turn their ice into sea level rise quite quickly. And that’s our big concern.
Since 2008, Blankenship has been concentrating on the East Antarctic ice sheet – more than a third of which is below sea level. Blankenship estimates that the ice contained within this ice sheet has the potential to raise global sea level by 60 meters, or 200 feet.
Donald Blankenship: We have one last great ice sheet – it’s the East Antarctic ice sheet. We don’t know what its future implies for us. These great ice sheets may be at the end of the earth, but they’re much more important than their distance implies
Blankenship’s projects is part of the IPY – the International Polar Year – an international effort to push boundaries forward in studies of the Arctic and Antarctic.
Our thanks to:
Donald Blankenship
Institute for Geophysics
University of Texas
How does your explanation supercede Archemeides Principle? I read an article that if it weren’t for resonance frequences set up by ocean waves, the icebergs could be towed to the middle east. If it is below 32, ice can’t melt but sublimation can continue. Why do you disreguard sublimination? After all ICE has a water vapor pressure even if it is below freezing temperature. Did you forget that Antaractica is one of the driest places on Earth + sublimination + water vapor pressure means Ice will disappear even it is below freezing.
This article makes no sense whatsoever. If the ice that’s at risk is below sea level and water rushes in to fill the void created by melting how does that have the capacity to raise sea levels? Quickly or otherwise? None of the rest of the article is any more coherent. Likely this guy knows something about these things but somehow he’s either blinded by alarmism or the author of the article has twisted everything to support that agenda. In the end, what has been presented is nonsense.
Coalsoffire,
If an ice sheet has its base below sea level, and that icy base melts, then the entire sheet sinks a bit. A new section of the ice sheet goes below sea level, becoming the new base. Then – as with the previous base – the new base of ice has a greater potential to melt (where before it was frozen). That’s one way melting ice sheets can raise sea level.
Best,
Deborah
Blankenship’s description of the structure and quantity of ice in the East Antarctic ice sheet seems well articulated and plausible. But then he jumps off the deep end (no pun intended) and travels down a seemingly disjointed discourse on all of the ice melting from global warming and suddenly raising the global sea level by 200 ft. Even the UN-IPCC has backed away from such outlandish predictions (which weren’t nearly as outlandish as the scenario proposed by Blankenship if it is to be taken seriously).
The only conclusion I can come to is Blankenship is attempting to use sea level rise to provide a comparative sense of how much ice there is in the Antarctic and which sheets would go first if the Antarctic temperatures were to suddenly rise and melt them. If so, the mixing of global warming dooms day alarmism with otherwise sound research has confused the point.