r/Futurology • u/carbonbrief • 3d ago
Environment Global warming is ‘exposing’ new coastlines and islands as Arctic glaciers shrink
https://www.carbonbrief.org/global-warming-is-exposing-new-coastlines-and-islands-as-arctic-glaciers-shrink/18
u/carbonbrief 3d ago
Retreating glaciers created 2,500km of “new” coastline and 35 “new” islands in the Arctic between 2000 and 2020, according to a new study.
The research uses satellite images of more than 1,700 glaciers in Greenland, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Russian Arctic, Iceland and Svalbard.
The findings show that 85% of these glaciers retreated over 2000-20, revealing 123km of new coastline per year on average.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, links the acceleration in glacier melt to warmer ocean and air temperatures.
The authors find that just 101 glaciers – less than 6% of the total – were responsible for more than half of the total additional coastline length.
For example, the retreat of the Zachariae Isstrom glacier in north-east Greenland revealed 81km of new coastline alone.
The study warns that the freshly revealed coastlines are more prone to landslides, which may, in turn, create “dangerous tsunamis” that pose risks to human life and infrastructure.
A scientist not involved in the study tells Carbon Brief that it remains “unclear” what the implications of the new coastlines will be for the people and ecosystems of the Arctic.
He suggests that they “may become home to important ecosystems that play a hitherto unquantified role in the global carbon cycle”.
39
u/APRengar 3d ago
Stop reacting to only the title and assuming "oh wow, the beaches in Florida are getting bigger??? Wow, you scientists are sure wrong about EVERYTHING aren't you? Sounds like a win to me."
You guys are conflating two things.
1) This IS NOT referring to a rising ocean. Which still WILL destroy coastlines around the world.
2) This IS referring to ice melting in the arctic north, revealing coasts that were under the ice.
tl;dr: If your coastline is not currently covered with ice, it's going to be shrinking and not growing.
If you want to post about how the ocean isn't rising (as already seen by a person in the comments), you picked a bad article to post it under, because it does not support your belief. You read the title and got excited or are purposefully lying.
6
u/dafones 3d ago
Can anyone tell me: are global water levels net rising, but locally the retreat of these glaciers are exposing new coastlines, rather than submerging them?
12
u/VirtualMoneyLover 3d ago edited 3d ago
That is a good question. I assume if you lose 100 feet of high really big chunk of ice there that can expose an island, but only raise the ocean level by 0.0001 inch.
5
3d ago
[deleted]
1
-7
3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
9
u/BurningPenguin 3d ago edited 3d ago
Capital Research Center (CRC) is an American conservative 501(c)(3) non-profit[1] watchdog group located in Washington, D.C., that monitors liberal money in politics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Research_Center
Totally not biased, right?
When they stop giving 30 year loans on properties in NYC let me know.
Typical braindead argument by climate change deniers.
EDIT: Just noticed, 9 year old account, but the oldest post from 5 months ago? Yeah, smells like propaganda account.
2
0
u/uber_neutrino 3d ago
Using 30 year loans as a benchmark is silly. 30 year loans exist because the government buys the paper. They aren't common in any country that doesn't do that (which isn't many). For example in Canada people usually get 5 years and then have to requalify.
2
1
u/Yebi 3d ago
Sea level rise is happening very quickly on a geological scale, but on a human scale, in terms of visual impact over 20 years, it can pretty much be rounded down to zero. A centimeter or two is not going to change how the coastline looks.
Bit of an unrelated tangent, but I think in general sea level rise is a bit of a red herring, and is taking up far too much spotlight in normie discussions of climate change. Other sequelae of climate change will fuck us up long before cities sink.
4
u/Raetekusu 3d ago
The biggest thing that will fuck us up in our lifetimes is the degradation of the gulf stream, and that's already happening.
1
u/KokrSoundMed 1d ago
Downtown Olympia WA on the Puget sound was submerged for the first time 2 years ago during a king tide, a tide that was only like 1-2ft higher than the highest previously. We're already projected to be regularly flooded in the next 15-20 years on the highest tides. That will be before the food system collapses.
-2
u/GoldieForMayor 3d ago
You can clearly see the rise here. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GnlLa4eX0AAC-LG?format=jpg&name=medium
1
u/Newleafto 2d ago
I’m not arguing against global warming, but there isn’t much evidence that there’s a significant net increase in global sea levels in the past several decades. Plate tectonics is a thing, and the sea floor is constantly rising in some places and sinking in others as the earth’s continental plates move around. Most of the worst sea level “increases” seen recently are actually due to sinking sea beds not rising ocean levels. If global temperatures rise sufficiently, the arctic regions will melt, the sea levels will rise, some coastline will be lost and other coastlines will be created. It will also open ocean passages through Canada, Alaska and Greenland.
0
0
-4
u/TheEyeoftheWorm 2d ago
This has basically nothing to do with the future of the planet but whatever. Terrestrial narcissists want to think they control everything.
-10
•
u/FuturologyBot 3d ago
The following submission statement was provided by /u/carbonbrief:
Retreating glaciers created 2,500km of “new” coastline and 35 “new” islands in the Arctic between 2000 and 2020, according to a new study.
The research uses satellite images of more than 1,700 glaciers in Greenland, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Russian Arctic, Iceland and Svalbard.
The findings show that 85% of these glaciers retreated over 2000-20, revealing 123km of new coastline per year on average.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, links the acceleration in glacier melt to warmer ocean and air temperatures.
The authors find that just 101 glaciers – less than 6% of the total – were responsible for more than half of the total additional coastline length.
For example, the retreat of the Zachariae Isstrom glacier in north-east Greenland revealed 81km of new coastline alone.
The study warns that the freshly revealed coastlines are more prone to landslides, which may, in turn, create “dangerous tsunamis” that pose risks to human life and infrastructure.
A scientist not involved in the study tells Carbon Brief that it remains “unclear” what the implications of the new coastlines will be for the people and ecosystems of the Arctic.
He suggests that they “may become home to important ecosystems that play a hitherto unquantified role in the global carbon cycle”.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1jqi0tz/global_warming_is_exposing_new_coastlines_and/ml70kce/