Store Glacier, West Greenland
Greenland's ice sheet may be more exposed to warming sea temperatures
than past predictions of sea level rise accounted for.
[A]ccording to new research, fjords in West Greenland are much deeper than previously thought. That means the world’s sea levels could rise faster than anticipated, because those outlet glaciers are more exposed to warm water. The findings have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters. [...]
On average, the fjords in this region are about 200 to 300 meters deeper than previously thought in some areas, he added. Glaciers undercut by warm water can melt twice as fast as those in colder waters, all other things being equal.
Estimates on how fast sea levels are rising “will have to change because these processes are not accounted for in existing models,” Rignot said. “It’s part of an ongoing story, that the projections of sea level rise are underestimated.”
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2005—Unprepared for a Flu Pandemic:
If a much-feared pandemic of avian influenza starts sweeping through the world's population anytime soon, neither the United States nor international health authorities will be prepared to cope with it. There is not enough vaccine or antiviral medicine available to protect more than a handful of people, and no industrial capacity to produce a lot more of these medicines quickly.
And they're right. We are horribly unprepared locally, nationally and throughout the world. Part of the issue is how we communicate the need. This article, written for WHO, tries to get at how to talk to folks to address the issues.
Public health officials have a pandemic-size communication problem. Experts believe a deadly influenza pandemic is quite likely to be launched by the H5N1 avian virus that has killed millions of birds and dozens of people in Asia. They are more anxious than they have been in decades. But infectious diseases are unpredictable. H5N1 could disappear--as swine flu did in 1976--and "The Great Pandemic of 2___" could arise from a strain that doesn't even exist yet. Even if H5N1 does cause a human pandemic, it might weaken and produce only mild disease. So it's hard for officials to know how aggressively to sound the alarm. They don't want to be accused of needlessly frightening the public. They also don't want to be accused—later—of leaving the public underprepared for a disaster.
Tweet of the Day
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: Another mass shooting. No one is sure why. Some know nothing at all.
Greg Dworkin introduces us to the newest Gop soap opera. Trump is #1! But why? Is it "respect"? Not a lot of Gop respect from Latinos, though. Minorities and young stick with Obama. If Hillary's terrible luck holds out, she'll end up president. A guy thinks gluing a gun to someone's hand would be provocative. Guess who is the top tax evader in Greece. A look at the madness surrounding "that flag," the division continuing to today.
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