About the Thwaites glacier

A few weeks ago, stories about new research on the melting of the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica made it into the news. ABC News reported:

Antarctica's melting ‘Doomsday glacier’ could raise sea levels by 10 feet, scientists say

The loss of the Thwaites glacier could destabilize western Antarctica.

One of Antarctica's most important glaciers is holding on "by its fingernails" as warming temperatures around the globe threaten to cause further deterioration, which could then destabilize the glaciers in the entire region.

The Thwaites glacier, located in the Amundsen Sea in western Antarctica, is among the fastest-changing glaciers in the region, according to scientists. Along with Pine Island, also located in the Amundsen Sea, the two structures are responsible for the largest contribution of sea level rise out of Antarctica.

Now, scientists are finding that the Thwaites glacier, also known as the “Doomsday glacier,” is melting faster than previously thought as warm and dense deep water delivers heat to the present-day ice-shelf cavity and melts its ice shelves from below, according to a study published in Nature Geoscience on Monday.

Thwaites, which is about the size of Florida, has been known to be on a fast retreat. But researchers from the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science and the British Antarctic Survey mapped a critical area of the seafloor in front of the glacier that could contribute to faster melting in the future.

A proposed model for how Thwaites is retreating is shown below from the Nature Geoscience paper.

Fig. 5: Conceptual model for the formation of 

ribs by tidally modulated grounding-line migration

a, Grounding at low water forms a rib by settling and sediment bulging/extrusion at the grounding line ahead of an ice plain. b, Subsequent grounding-line migration occurs during high water with the ice-shelf base displaced upwards and landwards by the tide, allowing contact with warm ocean water. Basal melting is enhanced by tidal mixing in the narrow cavity. c, Grounding line settles at new position on the next low water, creating a second rib in series. The amplitude and spacing of ribs is a function of tidal amplitude, which modulates the distance of retreat from ridge to ridge. Bottom: plot depicting typical diurnal tide cycle for a 48 h period at Thwaites Glacier. Intervals on x-axis correspond to 0.2 days (4.8 hours). a–c relate to positions on the tidal cycle. Triangles denote successive grounding-line positions. Note exaggerated vertical scale in all images; the true sea-floor expression of the ridges is subtle, with sea bed and ice bottom slopes only fractions of a degree.

How this will probably play out

This interactive map shows what happens to coast lines when sea level rises in 1 foot increments up to a 10 foot rise. Personally, me and my family would be wiped out if Thwaites collapses. That would force me and my happy little family into either (i) a pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps situation if the Republicans were in power (the GOP’s standard go pound sand policy), or (ii) a hair previously on fire but now put out by water (Ahhh!! The water is too high -- do something!!) situation if the Democrats were in power. Either way, average people like me on the coasts would be royally hosed. There would be mass illegal immigration of tens of millions of Americans from the coasts moving or swimming to the American interior where true patriots and real heroes reside and continue to deny climate change and blame people on the coasts for not planning better. 

Not long from now, maybe within ~10 years, the costs of climate change denial, dither and blither are going to gigantically increase. Tens of trillions in property and infrastructure will sink into the sea and become new habitat for fish, barnacles, seaweed, other sea critters, and waste plastic. The Republicans will confidently blame the Democrats and socialism, pointing to how well untaxed, unregulated free markets protected us. Executives of oil companies and other profit from pollution companies, and rich people on the coasts will move to higher ground and deny any knowledge of, and responsibility for, anything.

Much finger pointing, lying, blame shifting and blithering crackpottery will ensue, resulting in a cornucopia of disaster and paralysis. A veritable festival of failure.

Lower Manhattan with 8ft. sea level rise

Some of NYC and NJ with 8 ft. sea level rise

Brought to you by Germaine, bringer of important news everyone wants to hear about

Germaine’s motto: Please don’t shoot the messenger!

Science bits: Solar ejaculation wrecks ~40 satellites brings thoughts on civilization collapse

Also known as an eruption, flare, particle storm, geomagnetic storm, coronal mass ejection, or whatever else.

NPR reports on the Sun’s ‘outburst’ back in February:

Only a fraction of the 49 satellites SpaceX launched into orbit last week survived a geomagnetic storm, the company says. As many as 40 of the Starlink satellites "will reenter or already have reentered the Earth's atmosphere," according to SpaceX.

The satellites were launched into low-Earth orbit last Thursday, with the plan of bringing them up to a higher altitude. But one day later, a strong geomagnetic storm dramatically changed conditions in the atmosphere, spoiling many of the satellites' chances of reaching their final orbit.

Citing GPS data, SpaceX says the storm “caused atmospheric drag to increase up to 50 percent higher than during previous launches.”

That increased drag hurt the satellites' chances of reaching their final orbit, a preliminary analysis by the company suggests. “SpaceX tried to save them, but in the end, only nine satellites are expected to survive,” NPR's Geoff Brumfiel reports.

The satellites that can't maintain orbit will burn up as they reenter Earth's atmosphere, “meaning no orbital debris is created and no satellite parts hit the ground,” SpaceX said.

Currently there are ~2000 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit. About 2000 more are planned. Starlink is a satellite internet system operated by SpaceX, an Elon Musk company. It provides satellite internet access to 40 countries. SpaceX intends to use Starlink to provide global mobile phone service sometime after 2023.

And then, things get really bad

I mention this science bit about the lost satellites to raise a far more important point. The situation could have been much worse than a mostly unnoticed loss of some satellites. Solar ejaculations can collapse some or most of civilization pretty easily. A big one just might cause the human species to go extinct.

The science series, The End Is Nye, narrated by Bill Nye the Science Guy, devotes one program (Forever Blackout) to what would happen if Earth gets hit by a really big juicy solar . . . whatever. The List commented: 

The series covers everything from a massive comet hurtling toward the Earth to an out-of-control dust storm. Yet there's one disaster that Nye is most afraid of actually happening. “The one that really has me thinking is the coronal mass ejection,” he admitted in an exclusive interview with The List. 

Creating the third episode of The End Is Nye left Bill Nye feeling concerned. If a solar flare from the sun actually came hurtling toward the Earth, the world would be in a whole lot of trouble. “These charged particles — the energy in the charged particles — would interact with the Earth’s magnetic field and turn off all the lights,” Nye told The List. “All the electricity in the world would shut down.”

It turns out, this catastrophic event has happened once before in human history. In 1859, a man named Carrington made the connection between solar flares and fires that were spreading all over the Earth. Many of these were causing telegraph offices to completely shut down. “Now, there are so many wires running everywhere all the time,” Nye said. “If we had a couple of these mass ejections back to back, like the Earth spun 12 hours and it happened again, all the electricity in the world [would] shut off.”

A repeat of the Carrington Event today would make it impossible to microwave our meals or even watch “Bill Nye the Science Guy” on our TVs. “No more refrigeration, no more cars, no more virtual movie interviews,” Nye said. “It would be a drag really fast.”

Bill Nye in a Faraday cage to prevent being fried by 

too much electromagnetic energy, like from a 

bolt of lightening or a juicy solar . . . event

To harden the grid, put electrical 

transformers in Faraday cages

Currently we aren’t doing squat to prepare

We like to react, not proact

(no surprise there ☹️)

So, when a nasty solar event hits Earth, the best one can hope for is that it is the middle of the night. In that case, I think that thoughts and prayers ought to go out to people where it is daytime. Right after that, once the ramifications of what happened to people on the bright side sinks in, I think that thoughts and prayers ought to go out to people where it is night time. 

A new summary of the history of US military interventions

If history is persuasive, the US arguably is militarily aggressive and belligerent. A recent research article, Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A New Dataset on US Military Interventions, 1776–2019 (senior author, Monica Toft), updates the scholarship. The abstract:

While scholars have made many claims about US military interventions, they have not come to a consensus on main trends and consequences. This article introduces a new, comprehensive dataset of all US military interventions since the country’s founding, alongside over 200 variables that allow scholars to evaluate theoretical propositions on drivers and outcomes of intervention. It compares the new Military Intervention Project (MIP) dataset to the current leading dataset, the Militarized Interstate Disputes (MID). In sum, MIP doubles the universe of cases, integrates a range of military intervention definitions and sources, expands the timeline of analysis, and offers more transparency of sourcing through historically-documented case narratives of every US military intervention included in the dataset. According to MIP, the US has undertaken almost 400 military interventions since 1776, with half of these operations undertaken between 1950 and 2019. Over 25% of them have occurred in the post-Cold War period.

The post-Cold War period ended on Dec. 26, 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved. The MIP definition of military intervention is broader than the MID definition. Because of that the MIP analysis shows there have been more military interventions than MID analysis. Data from the two definitions is shown below.

The paper’s conclusion includes these comments:

Preliminary results from MIP show that the US has increased its military usage of force abroad since the end of the Cold War. Over this period the US has preferred the direct usage of force over threats or displays of force, increasing its hostility levels while its target states have decreased theirs. Along the way, the regions of interest have changed as well. Up until World War II, the US frequently intervened in Latin America and Europe, but beginning in the 1950s, the US moved into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). By the 1990s, it doubled down on MENA and directed its focus to Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia as well.  

We intend that the MIP data set and the analysis that follows provide an important resource to those interested in understanding the dynamics of US interventions historically and into the future. We contend that better data will lead to better theory testing, and ideally better policy formulation, on the subject of US military intervention.

The website for the academic center at Tufts University that created the MIP database makes these comments:

With its extensive defense budget and capabilities, the US remains a military leader in contemporary international politics – but can this military advantage ever become a long-run disadvantage for our foreign policy? According to our data, the US has undertaken over 500 international military interventions since 1776, with nearly 60% undertaken between 1950 and 2017. What’s more, over one-third of these missions occurred after 1999.[2] With the end of the Cold War era, we would expect the US to decrease its military interventions abroad, assuming lower threats and interests at stake. But these patterns reveal the opposite – the US has increased its military involvements abroad.

Perhaps as we exclusively focus on maintaining our military might, we elevate the usage of force over other strategies of international policymaking, to the detriment of our own interests. As it stands, the US seems to operate without any clear guidelines for when it employs force abroad, and the consequences of such interventions remain blurred and contradictory. [3]

In fact, Monica Toft has labeled the current trend of US military engagements as kinetic diplomacy, diplomacy solely via armed force. As traditional diplomacy withers away, growing in its place are shadowy special operation missions, drone strikes, and/or readily utilized conventional military deployments. As of this year, “while US ambassadors are operating in one-third of the world’s countries, US special operators are active in three-fourths.”[4]

Research into military interventions seems to be in flux and immature. Other kinds of analyses of military conflict give different results because they rely on different definitions. For example, this site lists factors that were not included in its 1890-2019 analysis. The list is long and it includes these considerations: mobilizations of the National Guard, offshore shows of naval strength, reinforcements of embassy personnel and military exercises. 

Given the high stakes of a nuclear war that spins out of control, i.e., collapse of modern civilization and death of billions of people, this topic merits more attention than it currently gets.

Q: Is it reasonable to assert that in recent decades, traditional diplomacy has significantly or mostly withered away, and it was replaced with special operation missions, drone strikes, and/or conventional military deployments?

Trump’s takeover of courts has started to sting

The Guardian writes:

In the first televised presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in 2020, the sitting president was asked why voters should re-elect him to the White House. He gave a relatively obscure answer – it was all about the judges, he said.

He ended his single tenure having placed 231 men and women on the federal bench, including three on the US supreme court, 54 on appeals circuits and 174 on district courts.

Last week, the significance of Trump’s hyper-aggressive remodeling of the federal bench lurched into view. Aileen Cannon, who Trump nominated for the US district court for the southern district of Florida in May 2020, granted the former president his desire to have a “special master” handle thousands of documents seized by the FBI from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

The ruling was greeted with astonishment by legal scholars who noted how convenient it was for Trump to give the special master control over highly classified materials. Cannon effectively erected a roadblock in front of the justice department’s criminal investigation into how national security intelligence had been illegally hidden in Mar-a-Lago.

Even William Barr, himself a former Trump appointee as US attorney general, had only harsh words. “Deeply flawed”, he said about the ruling.

But Cannon’s maverick decision is just the thin end of the wedge. From the supreme court down, the impact of Trump’s recalibration of the federal judiciary is now starting to sting.

The consequences of Trump’s three appointments to the supreme court are now well understood by many Americans. The evisceration of the right to an abortion; blocking government action on the climate crisis; rolling back gun control laws are just a few of the seismic changes wrought by the court’s new 6-to-3 conservative supermajority.

Less visible and much less well comprehended are the similarly drastic shifts that are being initiated in the lower courts by Trump-appointed judges like Cannon. “These appointments are not only tilting the law further right, they are starting to erode fundamental democratic protections,” said Rakim Brooks, president of the advocacy group Alliance for Justice.

Biden is doing what he can to push the needle back towards the center. A review by the Pew Research Center last month found that the Democratic president had managed to surpass Trump’s rate at seating federal judges, achieving more confirmations at an equivalent point in his tenure than any president since John Kennedy.

Today Biden has confirmed a total of 81 federal judges (80 if you discount the fact that he nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson twice – first for an appeals court and then as the newest addition to the supreme court). Just how far the current president will be able to go in mitigating the rightward shift under Trump remains to be seen, with much hanging on the outcome of November’s midterm elections.

Apparently, my previous criticism of Democrats being slow about nominating federal judges was wrong. They are doing better than I thought. 

If the Dems lose control of the Senate after the 2022 elections, that will be the end of all Democratic judges being appointed to the federal bench.