> The point is that if the ice on the surface of the ice sheet starts to
> melt quickly, it can drill moulins into the ice which will allow the
> water to reach the base of the glacier and release the potential
> energy of a fall of two miles!
With a perfectly lubricated surface I should think it would not even
take days for the ice shelves to slide. Neglecting friction, I think
this would also be pretty straightforward to calculate.
I am not an expert in glacier movement, most people won't be. What I'd
like off those experts is a clearer statement of what is known, I
think that a consensus would probably be that there is >90%
probability of no significant acceleration, 5% of maybe a meter's
equivalent in a 100 years and <1% of 5m in 50 years, and 0.0000001% or
something like that for 5 m in 10 years, but I haven't seen this (or
something like it) stated explicitly anywhere. Nor have I seen
anything on even how many people are working on the issue.
Why can't the IPCC come up with a special report on the issue,
detailing what is known, what isn't known and what could be done to
find out more?
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