Bye Bye, Tuvalu...

March 19, 2002 3:14 PM

Bye Bye, Tuvalu...

"In 1998, BAS predicted the demise of more ice shelves around the Antarctic Peninsula. Since then warming on the peninsula has continued and we watched as piece-by-piece Larsen B has retreated. We knew what was left would collapse eventually, but the speed of it is staggering. Hard to believe that 500 billion tonnes of ice sheet has disintegrated in less than a month."
speccy piccy this.(link via Ethel)
posted by lagado (18 comments total)

Tuvalu is not in any danger from rising sea levels. If the island is in any danger at all (and even this is very much up for debate), it's because of the subsidence of the volcano underneath it.

In fact, there is evidence that the sea levels around that island are falling. From the Washington Post, Dec. 4, 2001:

MORE TUVALU NEWS: Tuvalu just can't seem to stay out of the news.

First we reported that the tiny island nation in the South Pacific was a prime place to register Web site domain names. Then last week we reported the distressing news, passed along to us by Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, that Tuvalu was being swamped by the rising sea.

Well, "don't boo-hoo for Tuvalu," says Pat Michaels – at least not yet. "Sea level around Tuvalu has been declining for the past 50 years" because the sea has been getting colder, says Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute who teaches climatology at the University of Virginia. "That fact was published in the Oct. 26, 2001, issue of Science magazine by French scientist Cecile Cabanes."

Cabanes used data from satellites as well as temperature readings collected by deep-diving submarines to compute the change in sea level since 1950. Other researchers relied on less reliable data to predict Tuvalu's watery demise, Michaels says.

"In my profession, climatology, I don't think we know as much as people think we do – or some of my colleagues say we do," Michaels admits.

posted by aaron at 3:52 PM on March 19, 2002

incredibly alarmist language in the main link. nice.

according to the article, not much of anyone will feel rising sea levels from this one: As it is already floating the disintegration of Larsen will have no impact on sea level. Sea level will rise only if the ice held back by the ice shelf flows more quickly into the sea.
posted by patricking at 4:02 PM on March 19, 2002

Still that is A WHOLE FUCKING LOT OF ICE.


Though to be fair it don't matter much anyway.

Man...I wonder if I sold all my stuff...how much of antarctica I could buy.
posted by Settle at 4:50 PM on March 19, 2002

What worries me isn't change. Global climate is bound to change.

What worries me is the possibility of "going critical."

It's like adding weight to a college-competition pasta bridge: they add a little bit of weight time and time again, and the bridge is perfectly fine by all appearances. Then one last weight is added and snaps: complete, catastrophic failure.

It worries me that we may be stressing our environment, and because it looks perfectly fine, we feel free to stress it a bit more. And then...
...snap. We're toast.

That'd just ruin my day.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:42 PM on March 19, 2002

3250 km²? Holy smokes, talk about a hazard to navigation.

I ran across this link while researching this a bit more. Turns out burgs of this size have happened before. The article lists B-9, which was also roughly twice the side of RI. Turns out that they also rarely escape the clockwise gyre of Weddell Sea.

So much for that momentary vision of planing a runway on it and making it into the world's largest RV.
posted by eszetela at 6:08 PM on March 19, 2002

says Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute...

hmmm
posted by lagado at 7:26 PM on March 19, 2002

Try reading his next sentence.
posted by aaron at 7:38 PM on March 19, 2002

Tuvalu is not in any danger from rising sea levels. If the island is in any danger at all (and even this is very much up for debate), it's because of the subsidence of the volcano underneath it.

This doesn't sound like much of a distinction: if, as you say, there's some chance that Tuvalu is threatened by either sinking X or rising Y, what should we do to prepare? It is an empirical question whether Tuvalu will disappear and why. But aside from that, I think the Tuvalu case is worth discussing because, whatever its actual future, there is mounting evidence for threats of this kind in other low-lying areas. What kind of preparations should governments make for this? This is something people are only beginning to ask.
posted by rschram at 7:49 PM on March 19, 2002

The question of Tuvalu is a fine one for discussion, but the links lagado gave in his front page post do not mention Tuvalu at all. He attempted to make a connection between the links and the island that IMHO do not exist, thus I posted to clarify. In other words, the thread ought to be about the ice shelf, not Tuvalu.
posted by aaron at 8:20 PM on March 19, 2002

An Ice Shelf News page, tracking back to 1998, when this collapse was first expected and widely reported. This is the most dramatic collapse in a very long time, and the portion of the shelf that broke off had probably been stable for at least 400 years, or possibly 12,000. (The ice itself, of course, was continuously breaking off and being replaced -- this is pretty much just a glacier that's floating on water.) This process has been a matter of concern for some time:

During the past few years, ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula have been quickly melting. In fact, most of the major ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula have been fatally impacted. The Wordie collapsed in the late 1980s, and the Prince Gustav and Larsen A Ice Shelves disintegrated in 1995. As these shelves melt, they are permanently changing the shape of the continent. James Ross Island, once surrounded by Larsen, is free of ice and circumnavigable for the first time [since humans have been journeying to the southern continent]. Three more shelves, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the University of Colorado, have receded past a "point of no return." These three are the Larsen B, the Wilkins, and the George VI Ice Shelves.

Scientists believe that Larsen B Ice Shelf will be the next shelf to collapse. This shelf lost its structural integrity during the 1997-98 Austral summer, when it calved an iceberg with an area of 75 square miles (200 km2). Larsen B has an overall surface area of 4,800 square miles (12,000 km2). When it disintegrates, it will dump more ice into the Southern Ocean than all of the previous half century's icebergs combined.

Now, it should be noted that these shelves are anywhere from 5 to 10 latitude degrees more northerly than the two major ice shelves, the Ronne and the Ross: if you call them Chicago, the collapses began near Miami in the 1980s and have now progressed to Atlanta. This should be concerning, even accounting for the fact that those lost are small shelves making up less than 10% of the total ice shelf area in the continent.

These collapses are themselves indicative of global warming per se as a climatic trend, but of course offer nothing substantive to the question of whether human activity is causing that warming, or whether changes in regulation will slow it, both of which are vastly more complex questions. I do believe that global warming itself is as close to proven as any such long-term macro-environmental process could be.

Whether or not we could slow global warming by changes in our behavior as a species, rschram is correct: we have to accept that global warming could have vastly complicating effects, including a non-trivial rise in sea level, and determine what we need to do about it.

I hope we're ready, because if indeed the Ronne and Ross shelves collapse, that would probably be the alarm that would spur us to action, a clear warning that the integrity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet itself is in danger, but by then it might be too late to effectively prepare.
posted by dhartung at 8:57 PM on March 19, 2002

Might I point out that even if climate *change* were to occur, it is not necessarily a bad thing? For every growth in sea level, another part of the world will see a growth in food production because of increased rainfall. Postrol's "The Future and its Enemies" is a good work on the stasist nature of the global warming debate.

I think environmentalism is great. I'd love to breathe a little easier and have less pollutants in the water. But global warming is one of the most ridiculous arguments of the environmentalists. As Aaron points out, the correlation between man-made environmental changes and global warning is still far from proven.
posted by Kevs at 9:31 PM on March 19, 2002

Yes, but it's going to be a real bitch if it turns out that we are at fault, and have fucked up the planet irrevocably.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:23 PM on March 19, 2002

But global warming is one of the most ridiculous arguments of the environmentalists. As Aaron points out, the correlation between man-made environmental changes and global warning is still far from proven.

Far from proven maybe (atleast according to the energy lobby) but definitely far from ridiculous.

That was a nice summary, dhartung, thanks.
posted by lagado at 2:52 AM on March 20, 2002

Then one last weight is added and snaps: complete, catastrophic failure.

i read someplace that ice, like clouds, help reflect heat back into space.

What kind of preparations should governments make for this?

dikes. lots and lots of dikes.
posted by kliuless at 6:32 AM on March 20, 2002

Kevs, I hear ya on the possibility of increase in arable land from the side effect of increased rainfall. I'd love it if South Carolina's long, hot and lately pretty dry summers could be more like, say, central New York State's.

However....

I'm really hazy on the figures, but I've heard scary scenarios like this: Something like 70% of all people on the planet live within 50 miles of a coastline, and entire economies would be profoundly affected by a sea-level rise of as little as five feet.

Anybody more knowledgeable please jump in to correct me.
posted by alumshubby at 6:55 AM on March 20, 2002

If Tuvalu ceases to exist, should the .tv domain go too?
posted by kerplunk at 8:20 AM on March 20, 2002

If Tuvalu ceases to exist, should the .tv domain go too?

I guess it all depends on whether you can run a server underwater...
posted by CatherineB at 10:19 AM on March 20, 2002

Kevs - Might I point out that even if climate *change* were to occur, it is not necessarily a bad thing?

Climate change by itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Long term climate change is part of the history of our planet. As you point out, there are winners and losers, so it balances. However - climate change hundreds of times faster than the normal rate of change probably will be a problem. Most plant & animal species are in some way optimized for/dependent on local climate conditions, so a lot of them will go extinct because they can't evolve quickly enough. Even species that can adapt to the climate change may go extinct if the species they depend on for food go under. Also, as alumshabby points out, much of our existing civilization is built around coastlines. Sure, we'll eventually build new port cities if our existing ones are submerged, but I can't see the forced relocation of hundreds of millions of people from the existing centers of commerce to new locations that aren't prepared for them to be anything less than a nightmare.

On the plus side, if you want to provide for the financial well being of your grandkids, now might be the time to buy land cheap in North Dakota. ;-)
posted by tdismukes at 11:15 AM on March 20, 2002