Jag har länge filosoferat över vad som kan hända om "kalvning" av
Antarktisisen kom till stånd.
Man har många rapporter från de europeiska alptrakterna att en gletsch eller en bree plötsligen kan ändra tillstånd från att vara mycket
trögflytande till att formligen "rinna" ner i sin fåra, sin dalgång.
Byar har i historisk tid svepts bort och studerar man geologin i
jökeltrakter ser man att det mycket ofta i den senaste geologiska historien har "runnit" stora glaciärisar ner från högplatåerna (stora och små).
De senaste åren har man, med modern toppografisk scanning, lyckats
utröna att en ställvis 3000 m hög bergskedja drar fram under antarktis-isen.
Risken för antarktisk "kalvning" är kanske inte så liten som man trott?
Härom året kalvade ett isflak av Gotlands storlek.
När man ser detta hot tillsammans med effekterna av smältningen i norr och kontemplerar Nederländernas öde bör man snabbt börja diskutera tekniska lösningar för att "gå till sjöss".

Man måste på allvar betänka konsekvenserna av en plötslig höjning av havsytan i världshaven och vad ligger väl närmare till hands än att
kustfolken etablerarar permanenta boplatser, ute till havs, med möjligheter för fortsatt utveckling och mänsklig samvaro. 
Det borde gå att initiera ett intresse för "Aquapolis" - flytande boplatser och ekologiskt balanserade industrier.
De tekniska omständigheterna är sådana att man bemästrar de oerhörda problem byggandet av ISS innebär, en permanent boplats utanför Jordens gravitation.
De tekniska förutsättningarna torde därför utan tveken finnas för att bygga tsunamisäkra massboplatser, flytande i världhavets biologiskt mycket produktiva strömmar.
Jag skall i det följande sätta idén på webben och hoppas så småningom på bildandet av Aquapolis Foundation.

Spinozas känsla för frihet krävde att han emigrerade till Nederländerna, nu hotas hela regionen av en "syndaflod".
Det torde finnas kapital att tillgå för att mildra konsekvenserna av denna översvämning bland de familjer som ser sin framtid ligga på fem meters djup i en snabbt växande havsvik!

            
                                                                          Picture: Brusell Art.

A vision of ecological aquaculture and natural design.
Floating module: concrete airbag, with venting holes, 
 possible to submerge underwater during dangerous meteriological and ocean conditions (tsunamisafe).

qikrux relay:

RELEASE: H00-112

NASA SCIENTISTS DETECT RAPID THINNING OF GREENLAND'S COASTAL ICE

Scientists who want to monitor the state of our global climate may have
to look no farther than the coastal ice that surrounds the
Earth's largest island.

A NASA study of Greenland's ice sheet reveals that it is rapidly
thinning. In an article published in the July 21 issue of Science,
Bill Krabill, project scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA, reports
that the frozen area around Greenland is thinning, in some places, at a
rate of more than three feet per year. Any change is
important since a smaller ice sheet could result in higher sea levels.

"A conservative estimate, based on our data, indicates a net loss of
approximately 51 cubic kilometers of ice per year from the
entire ice sheet, sufficient to raise global sea level by 0.005 inches
per year, or approximately seven percent of the observed
rise," Krabill said.

"This amount of sea level rise does not threaten coastal regions, but
these results provide evidence that the margins of the ice
sheet are in a process of change," Krabill said. "The thinning cannot be accounted for by increased melting alone. It appears
that ice must be flowing more quickly into the sea through glaciers."

Greenland covers 840,000 square miles and 85 percent of the island is
covered by ice, some of which is up to two miles thick.
With its southern tip protruding into temperate latitudes, monitoring
this portion of the ice sheet may be one of the best
ways to measure changes in our climate, at least in the Northern
Hemisphere.

The ice mapping was completed by NASA, which has been surveying the Greenland ice sheet for nearly seven years. In 1993
and 1994, NASA researchers surveyed the ice sheet using an airborne
laser altimeter and precision global positioning
satellite receivers. Those same areas were surveyed again in 1998 and
1999.

Now, for the first time, portions of the entire ice sheet covering
Greenland have been mapped with sufficient accuracy to detect
significant changes in elevation.

Krabill noted that while some internal areas of Greenland show slight
ice thickening, most areas along the coast show significant
thinning. "Why the ice margins are thinning so rapidly warrants
additional study," according to Krabill. "It may indicate that the
coastal margins of ice sheets are capable of responding more rapidly
than we thought to external changes, such as a warming
climate."

"For the first time, we are seeing evidence that one of the two great
ice bodies on the Earth (the other is the Antarctic ice sheet)
is contributing, in a modest fashion, to observed sea level rise," said
Dr. Ghassem Asrar, Associate Administrator for NASA's
Office of Earth Science. "NASA's ICESat spacecraft, which is scheduled for launch in 2001, will allow us to make similar
measurements routinely and keep an eye on both Antarctica and
Greenland."

The Office of Earth Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC sponsors the Greenland ice mapping project. NASA's
Office of Earth Sciences studies long-term climate trends to learn how
human-induced and natural changes affect our global
environment.

Further information on the Greenland mapping project, including the
technology behind the science, is available at:

http://aol.wff.nasa.gov/aoltm.html

Imagery supporting this story is available at:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagewall/greenland.html

More information about the Office of Earth Sciences can be found at:
http://www.earth.nasa.gov

Tomas Brusell
Articles