We live in cold times: “We live in the coldest period of the last 10.000 years” , says Danish glaciologist, Jørgen Peder Steffensen who take us back in time to the Grenland ice cores and reveals the secrets from the past.” Today’s warming is not unprecedented and thus no way to tell if human industry has made any difference. Jørgen Peder Steffensen is a professor in ice core related research at the centre for ice and climate at the Niels Bohr Institute the University of Copenhagen.\RNZ reported

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a18697409/ross-ice-shelf-melting/

THE ROSS ICE SHELF IS FREEZIBNG, NOT MELTING.. Feb 23^rd 2018. Scientists were surprised by their study. In November, scientists from New Zealand used a hot water drill to go deep into Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf. The shelf, which can be up to 10,000 feet thick, is the largest of several that hold back West Antarctica’s massive amounts of ice. If these were to collapse, global sea level would rise by ten feet.

Drilling a hole and lowering a camera and thermometer inside is a way for researchers to understand the history of the shelf, and what is happening to it now. In measuring the temperature and currents below the shelf, they expected to find that the ice was melting.

Instead, the water appeared to be crystalizing and freezing. In the video from National Geographic below, you can see the white dots of ice crystals as the camera is lowered towards the dark sea below. If the shelf was melting, the hole at that level would have smooth sides. “It blew our minds,” Christina Hulbe, the glaciologist from the University of Otago in New Zealand, who co-led the project, told National Geographic. It’s a decent sign that catastrophic melting of the Ross Ice Shelf won’t occur in the near future.

Source: National Geographic

See You Tube Video https://youtu.be/fyjt5zpNAeg?si=b6rR6BxYzDkYgmpH

 

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