Extremely Nasty Climate Wake-Up

Now that the Great Acceleration dictates the biosphere with ever more intensity, sudden changes in the ecosystem are causing climate scientists to stop and ponder what’s happening to our planet, like never before… hmm!

The Great Acceleration: “Only after 1945 did human actions become genuine driving forces behind crucial Earth systems,” (J.R.McNeill/Peter Engelke, The Great Acceleration, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London, 2014, pg. 208).

Abrupt changes outside the boundaries of natural variability are signs of climate fatigue, Mother Nature overwhelmed, defeated, breaking down. It’s happening fast and faster yet mostly on the fringes of the ecosystem with fewest people, other than, on occasion, a handful of scientists.

For example, for the first time ever, a team of UK scientists discovered 8,000 blue lakes formed in East Antarctica. The suddenness of so many blue lakes on surface surprised and bewildered scientists. (Source: Emily S. Langley, et al, Seasoned Evolution of Supraglacial Lakes on an East Antarctic Outlet Glacier, Geophysical Research Letters, Aug. 24, 2016)

According to the UK team: “Supraglacial lakes are known to influence ice melt and ice flow on the Greenland ice sheet and potentially cause ice shelf disintegration on the Antarctica Peninsula.” That is likely not good news. Antarctica is a continent covered by 200 feet of sea level contained in ice. Heavens to Betsy, until only recently scientists thought…

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