Antarctica, the massive continent of ice, the size of the continental US and Mexico combined, is breaking apart more and more as a recent scientific expedition discovered unambiguous signals of considerably more danger than previously realized.
“The changes to the sea-ice indicate that in the coming decades coastal cities will need to be reconfigured because of sea level rise,” according to Craig Stevens, Auckland Professor of Physical Oceanography. (Source: Signs Found of Worryingly Fast Antarctic Ice Melt – New Zealand Expedition, RNZ, March 3, 2024)
Sea level rise for coastal cities, the world’s worst nightmare, is coming within indeterminate decades but probably sooner than expected because that’s how science works these days. It’s always late to the party and not properly dressed for the occasion. But don’t blame the scientists, as soon as they complete research, the fast-moving climate system has outdistanced them. This is the new normal. Science is too slow for climate change.
Moreover, reader commentary/feedback about articles such as this recognizes a distinct trend in the world’s climate system that’s starting to come apart at the seams much earlier than expected. That observation is true. But what can be done and why aren’t world leaders holding emergency meetings to challenge civilization’s biggest challenge is puzzling, to say the least. It’s only too obvious because of lack of expedient policies to halt greenhouse gas emissions global warming and consequent sea level rise are not taken seriously enough.
In that regard, it must be noted that the world’s rich/wealthy elite that buy/own politicians, buy/own Supreme Court justices could have stopped global warming dead in its tracks decades ago when Dr James Hansen (Earth Institute/Columbia University) warned the US Senate in 1988 of global warming when he was head of NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies but instead chose to go along with a fossil fuel-poisoned world where the money resides.
Since that time, the world has become a function of neoliberal capitalism, as dictated by Reagan/Thatcher almost 50 years ago. Therefore, the question must be asked: Has that socio-economic system that has made only a few filthy rich on the back of 99.75% of the world’s population been a good caretaker of the planet? Answer: No, it has not. Then, why should that warped socio-economic system be allowed to continue as absentee care-less caretaker of the planet? Neoliberal capitalism hasn’t done one positive thing for the planet, not one but has drained resources and enriched a teeny-teeny-weeny minority of people. Bravo! But what’s the ecological legacy?
Meanwhile, a team of New Zealand scientists Antarctic Science Platform and a research team from the Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide aboard the 262-foot ice-breaker research vessel Laura Bassi just returned from two months in Antarctica’s Ross Sea. They got a first-hand look at sea ice retreat and came away with deep concern. Things are happening much faster than anybody thought possible. High noon for the world’s coastal cities is closer than they expected.
Craig Stevens, Professor of Physical Oceanography, Auckland led the expedition. The three lowest sea ice extents since modern records have been kept 2022, 2023, and 2024 are the lowest in the 46-year record of Antarctic sea ice. It’s gone fast and faster. Furthermore, the configuration of deeper parts of the ocean are changing via content of salty and oxygenated water. According to Dr. Stevens: ‘With a climate emergency underway, the work they were doing was urgent.”
It was only a couple of months ago when the following headline caught attention: Antarctic Sea-Ice at ‘Mind-Blowing Low Alarms Experts, RNZ, Sept.17, 2023. “It’s so far outside anything we’ve seen, it’s almost mind-blowing,” according to Walter Meier, who monitors sea-ice with the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at [email protected]