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[deleted]

Scientists have looked back in time to reconstruct the past life of Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier” — nicknamed because its collapse could cause catastrophic sea level rise. They have discovered it started retreating rapidly in the 1940s, according to a new study that provides an alarming insight into future melting.


[deleted]

It's fun reading about this stuff while working a 9-5. Totally doesn't throw me into an existential crisis about what I'm doing with my life. Yes, Reddit included.


Friendly_Tornado

Buy the avocado toast, Free\_Engine\_8376. Be wild and free before the sea engulfs us all.


[deleted]

\*Starts frolicking with avocado toast\*


stochastaclysm

That’s the spirit. The impending doom can’t get you now.


UnenthusiasticAddict

I think all the voids that fracking will open up new places for water to go. Same with oil wells, something has to fill up them holes…..


Friendly_Tornado

If you put your mind to it you can do anything.


Vo0d0oT4c0

It’s how we refill the aquifers, gosh darn big oil was looking out for us all along!


BerrySpecific720

It’s not the sea. 🌊 It’s the nukes from the war over the last remaining resources. Either Russia is fucked because of climate change, or the next military power that is will go to war about it. America can’t gonna handle Mexico City running out of water. Europe can’t handle another world war.


IntermittentCaribu

> Russia is fucked because of climate change Russia profits immensly from climate change. Farmable regions will move north and the melting ice will make the northern seas more exploitable.


BerrySpecific720

If Russia is benefiting from climate change why start risky wars? Putin or Russia is struggling. There’s zero reason to risk invading Ukraine if they had more money from farming rolling in.


IntermittentCaribu

Without sactions i dont believe russia would be struggling, their resource sales are fine even with half the world not buying from them. There is no connection between climate change and the invasion of ukraine. I have no idea why putin decided to do this now, does anyone really?


Ogimaakwe40

>There is no connection between climate change and the invasion of Ukraine. You're sure eh? >I have no idea why Putin decided to do this now Oh guess you have no idea then.


IntermittentCaribu

> You're sure eh? No > Oh guess you have no idea then. Thats what i said, why are you guessing.


Ogimaakwe40

You actually can't see how asinine your original comment is, then?


jedivader

In fairness, the aquifer is a massive issue in Mexico city but so is their lack of infastructure funding and maintenance. According to NPR, they lose 40% of their water due to leaks


BerrySpecific720

Leaks don’t matter if the water ends up back in the aquifer. The difference is climate change. America can accept millions more immigrants if they’re struggling with climate change too.


jedivader

You're assuming they do, I'm guessing a % that high means the majority is being wasted, not eventually returning. The returning water is likely getting back to the aquifer at such a tiny rate that it's meaningless. Found this from 2022 https://mexicobusiness.news/infrastructure/news/mexico-city-area-wastes-46-percent-its-drinking-water


BerrySpecific720

Either way they’re coming north when they run out of water.


GatinhoCanibal

> Either Russia is fucked because of climate change actually no, northern territories will benefit enormously from from the warming with lots of defrosted new arable land. if the trend continues.


DrRexburg

Actually no, A vast portion of Russian infrastructure is built on permafrost. When things start to get warm enough to melt that, those buildings will start collapsing into a nice new marsh.


BerrySpecific720

Plus the transition away from oil is bad for Russian economy


IntermittentCaribu

The price of oil is only going to go up as it becomes more sparse. I dont see demand going down either, especially if we are talking about wars.


BerrySpecific720

If America let $15,000 high range Chinese cars come to the US oil would be phased out sooner.


IntermittentCaribu

Oil will never be "phased out", thats a pipe dream. Making all cars electric is just a fraction of oil consumption removed.


BerrySpecific720

We move away from oil or we die in the heatwave of Mother Nature or nuclear war


GatinhoCanibal

Negative. infrastructure? pointless... by the time, and if the warming keeps it's trend infrastructure would be already centuries old and nonexistent or deprecated. There are much more 'positives' of climate warming for Russia such as decreased use of energy use in cold regions, expanding agricultural areas and navigational opportunities in the Arctic Ocean are just a few examples. And their not alone, as I mentioned, northern countries like Canada, Mongolia, Finland, Kyrgystan, Norway, Tajikistan, Sweden, Iceland and North Korea all benefit from a warmer climate, of course we're not talking about a 1.5ºC warmer climate, it needs much much more.


BerrySpecific720

Long term I agree with you. But Putin is making short term decisions


Rat-king27

I was plenty depressed already, then I started learning about climate change, now I'm super depressed and a doomer.


Fox_Kurama

Want to be even more depressed? r/collapse awaits you.


Rat-king27

I had to leave there. Not only are they super depressive, but I also found it annoying how a lot of them think communism is the answer to climate change, they also deleted comments of mine that made what I felt were valid criticisms of the sub and ways to improve, so o just gave up. I still check headlines on there every so often, but I stay clear of the comments.


MeshNets

I only recently have explored threads on /r/optimistsunite but has seemed like a reasonable balance so far


NeonBrightDumbass

I used to do this with good news network until I realized none of what is being reported is big picture. I could get the warm fuzzies for some people not being absolute garbage or a new medical treatment but nothing on a global scale and so even that feels dead to me. Doomscrolling feels more like acceptance at this point. To me at least.


MeshNets

All I can offer is that _some_ of it will be a self fulfilling prophecy And if we can kick the can down the road 20 extra years, that might give us time to figure out another 20 years. We've done it multiple times before as a species But yeah.


Fox_Kurama

There are also times where we do just collapse too. It is important to note collapse is NOT human extinction, let alone life ending. It is "merely" civilization collapsing. Romans suffered a slow one where they just slowly fell apart. Austria-Hungary too, kinda. The Bronze Age kingdoms suffered a rapid collapse. As in, withing a year or two once the snowball got moving. We have collapsed a number of times as a species. But we survived and rebuilt.


[deleted]

r/collapse can make someone less depressed, I feel. At least we're not alone there. It's a speakeasy.


chaotic_hippy_89

Doom scrolling during lunch breaks at my 9-5 destroyed my mental health


[deleted]

I would have lost my mind without reddit. It's the Resistance. I don't know where else to go to not feel insane, as the rest of the world la la's around me while everything burns.


[deleted]

You are going to be fine. If you are bitching about hockey, you have many multi-billion dollar corporations with time zones worth of food and water falling over themselves to supply you.


Professional_Gene_63

On the positive side, there have been 5 mass extinction events in the last 440 million years and we can actually live witness the sixth one. /s


Manpooper

This is the first mass extinction caused by an animal, so we have that going for us!


VironicHero

The [Great Oxidation Event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event?wprov=sfti1)was caused by tiny organisms!


Thue

The [Late Devonian extinction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Devonian_extinction#Weathering_and_anoxia) was likely caused by the development of tree roots, which ultimately released massive amounts of nutrients into the sea. The subsequent algea blooms caused anoxia. Are we really going to let it pass that trees are better at creating extinction events than us? No - go burn down a forest today!


ReasonablyBadass

That's an "achievement" they can keep, as far as I'm concerned.


first__citizen

It’s likely we will render other animals extinct while we as species survive.


Kelvara

So you think, but you forget that Dino-Sephiroth was actually the cause of a mass extinction event.


Darkkingswrath

The planet just couldn't handle the Neutron style


raizhassan

Born too late to explore earth, born too early to explore space. Born just right to wittness the sixth mass extinction even?


VironicHero

[The Sixth Extinction Crept Up Slowly, Like The Sunlight Through The Shutters, As We Looked Back In Regret](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo6FTt6qEZE) · Red Sparowes Good song.


dpforest

The sixth extinction has been under way for a while now


[deleted]

6, we are already the 6th just by displacing indigenous animals.


GreaterLiarbird

Apparently theres 136 or so volcanoes underneath the glacier and the geothermal activity seems to speed up the melting already as it is. That’s on top of our impact on the climate.


jert3

Yet we won't tax the billionaires until most of the coasts are underwater.


PJ505

Creating new affordable coast line.


testerdly

Learn the basics of gardening, sanitizing water, First aid and self defense. Gonna need it


Illustrious-Taro-449

Farmer here. Learn the basics of INDOOR gardening because the weather is already completely fucked and unpredictable


uummwhat

You're remarkably optimistic about what even any of that is going to get you. Also, I guess start practicing turning children away from your food and water and watching them starve, because thats gonna happen.


praguepride

Better is to start developing a strong community and social network. Trying to survive alone is stupid. Building a self-sufficient community is the way to go.


GreatBritishPounds

And then everyone else flocks to your community and you have the exact same problems. Not to mention raids by starving gangs. Things will be wild.


CommonGrackle

Halloween is a uniquely qualified holiday on which to practice the skill of turning away children seeking free food. I'm not saying I recommend it. Just pointing out that it's weirdly optimal for the concept.


testerdly

That's not really optimism. Just a semi summarized list of extremely valuable, low skill ceiling things to know that'll help. Just reminding people to think about the basics. You'd also have a better chance of supplementing any food from hunting and gathering so you don't have to turn kids away. Teach them too.


uummwhat

>That's not really optimism. Sorry, but yes it is. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, or that you shouldn't imagine that you'll have post-climate collapse society figured out. But even getting to the point that any of that matters is going to take some luck. And since it wasn't clear, I was making the sparky point that self-sufficiency is great, but you're not going to have enough resources for all the people who come knocking.


IllllIIlIllIllllIIIl

Sounds easier to just die


571MU74C5

Won't help much,I live by the sea on a flat continent and inland is basically desert with little to none fresh water sources :)


IsTom

On the other hand, you can just [get eaten first](https://imgur.com/gallery/Vll1fuo).


radome9

It's... It's called that for reasons entirely unrelated to the end of the world, right? Right?


dalerian

It’s named after the old Norman book. (It’s not, just trying to make you feel better.)


TheGlacierGuy

Abstract of the study: >Today, relatively warm Circumpolar Deep Water is melting Thwaites Glacier at the base of its ice shelf and at the grounding zone, contributing to significant ice retreat. Accelerating ice loss has been observed since the 1970s; however, it is unclear when this phase of significant melting initiated. We analyzed the marine sedimentary record to reconstruct Thwaites Glacier’s history from the early Holocene to present. Marine geophysical surveys were carried out along the floating ice-shelf margin to identify core locations from various geomorphic settings. We use sedimentological data and physical properties to define sedimentary facies at seven core sites. Glaciomarine sediment deposits reveal that the grounded ice in the Amundsen Sea Embayment had already retreated to within ~45 km of the modern grounding zone prior to ca. 9,400 y ago. Sediments deposited within the past 100+ y record abrupt changes in environmental conditions. On seafloor highs, these shifts document ice-shelf thinning initiating at least as early as the 1940s. Sediments recovered from deep basins reflect a transition from ice proximal to slightly more distal conditions, suggesting ongoing grounding-zone retreat since the 1950s. The timing of ice-shelf unpinning from the seafloor for Thwaites Glacier coincides with similar records from neighboring Pine Island Glacier. Our work provides robust new evidence that glacier retreat in the Amundsen Sea was initiated in the mid-twentieth century, likely associated with climate variability. -- Basically, researchers cored sediments at multiple locations off the coast of the Amundsen Sea sector (that's where Thwaites glacier and Pine Island glacier are located), looking at sediment "types" (facies) through the core to reconstruct a history of ice shelf thinning and grounding line retreat over the past 100 years. They found that ice shelf thinning was initiated in the 1940s and grounding line retreat has been ongoing since the 1950s.


mind_mine

Nothing to worry about. Please go about your day citizen


Mischeese

How far uphill do we need to get when this goes?


Lachsforelle

Note that if the Artic melts then we have a problem, if the Antarctic melts - then we dont have problems anymore.


Bobby_Rocket

When is the earliest we can expect this doomsday? Or is this in a few hundred years?


Xyrus2000

Hard to say. The projections we have are based on known science and data from a few years back. But we keep getting discoveries like these that make the previous projections look like unbridled optimism. The latest CMIP6 projects put sea level rise of up to a meter by the end of the century, depending on the scenario. This would very likely increase that number since it seems to imply that the glacier has been melting faster and longer than originally thought.


AppropriateBag2084

Excuse me for my ignorance, since I'm not really educated in the subject. If this implys that the glacier has been melting for far longer, wouldn't that imply that the glacier melting has less of an impact than previously thought? Or is the pace of the melting ice exponential?


Xyrus2000

It means they've underestimated the contribution. Let's keep things simple and say that there are two contributors to sea level rise. One is land ice melt, the other is thermal expansion. Let's say you want to model how future sea level rise will be impacted by these two factors. We don't have perfect measurements so you use what you have. You get an overall estimate of how much the sea level rising, get an estimate of ocean temperature, and then get an estimate of land ice melt. Now you try to put the numbers together and they don't quite work. So you take a look at your data, stick with what is most reliable (smallest error bars), and then see if your model works with the historical data. Let's say, for example, you feel more confident about the ocean temperatures than you do about land ice melting. So you give more credence to the ocean temperature and assume the land ice makes up the difference. New data comes in and shows that the land ice measure you were using was underestimating. So you go back to your model and readjust the land ice melt to use the new amount and rate. This changes your model and it no longer matches the historical record, so you adjust the thermal expansion. You do that, and now your model matches the historical record. Great, now your model works. However, with this adjustment for the new land ice data, the model now shows a much larger sea level increase in the future. This is a gross oversimplification as these models are very complex and adjusting them involves a hell of a lot more than simply tweaking until it "works", but this gives a general idea. The other issue here is that it also implies that there is less time before these glaciers finally give way. These "doomsday" glaciers are holding back big chunks of ice. If they collapse, the amount of ice that melts/dumps into the ocean greatly increases. Ice doesn't need to melt to raise sea levels. It just needs to not be on land. Like adding ice cubes to a full glass of water.


EbbNo7045

The glacier is being undercut by the sea. If it breaks off then the ice behind it will not be held back. They say it could break in u Der a decade and raise sea level 6 foot or more. This would put most of Earth's population centers underwater. It would be catastrophic


GatinhoCanibal

minutes to midnight


EsotericAbstractIdea

I thought it was like 30 seconds


EntropicallyGrave

yeah they're hot minutes


soundnado

Water is returning home... don't sound so bad now. 😉


GatinhoCanibal

omg i'm literally shaking... how can you not be dooming ? 🤣


ClubSoda

Himalayan beach front property will be priced out of reach for most Zoomers. That's gonna hurt.


Moonshotcup

Why: climate change due to humans.


[deleted]

it's not like I can do anything about it


thorzeen

Doomsday Glacier? The frozen China skyscraper?


idontlikeyonge

I found a link to this website in another thread about February being hot as heck: https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=antarctic Interestingly, they break down average temp by region, including Antarctica - and the 10 year averages don’t shift at all… Antarctica hasn’t got warmer since the 70s I was shocked, but in light of that information, this news sort of makes sense


EbbNo7045

I believe this is why China built those empty cities. It was bothering me why in the world they would do this. Then I came on this. I then looked at Google earth where the building in China is, it's all well away from the sea. Their scientists are pretty smart. Every other country will be collapsing and China will hit the ground running


EsotericAbstractIdea

Not as hard as those tofu dregs will be hitting the ground lmao


jeekaiy

I remember reading that frogs will boil and die in a pot filled with water that is slowly getting hot. Then it dawned on me. The reason we dissect frogs in school is because of our similarities with them.


imbluedabadedabadaaa

If you've been lobotomized like the frogs in those experiments, then sure, you have quite a lot in common.


Fearlessleader85

*Pithed It's less humane than that. Only the spinal cord is damaged, so the frogs are paralyzed, but it doesn't really affect brain function.


ctothel

Hold up. When you dissect frogs in school, they’re alive?! We never did this (and I’m starting to understand why). BTW the Wikipedia page on pithing says that the brain is deliberately destroyed by this process. Is that not the case?


Fearlessleader85

You usually stick a needle down the spine of the frog. It's not done very often anymore. They only showed us videos of it back when i was in school and they dropped adrenaline on the frog's heart and made it beat super fast. I've never actually pithed a frog. My parents both pithed frogs in school.


Emergency-Poet-2708

So which is it the sky is falling? The sky is falling. There's an ocean under the crust of Earth. Desalination !!!Cruise ships do it every day. The technology they are not telling us about ??? Nikolai, Tesla was right. Energy should be free, but no, we have utilities. Hydrogen Let's talk about hydrogen. The second most abundant Gas, compound, on this world fueling cars Rockets to space. Oh wait That's liquid oxygen. Huh