Word: melts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That's the kind of pick-your-perspective choice offered by a new paper published in the journal Science about the catastrophic rise in sea levels we could expect if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) continues to melt away as a result of global warming. According to a study by a team of researchers from the U.K. and the Netherlands, the much feared collapse of the WAIS could cause a 9-ft. rise in the planet's seas and oceans, laying waste to coastal lands and immersing some nations entirely. That's a doomsday scenario by most measures - until...
...most dangerous part of the Antarctic ice cap is in the west, where much of the continent lies slightly below sea level. Ice shelves that fringe the land keep the seawater out, but if those should melt, the water would rush in and destabilize the larger sheet, leading to slipping, more melting and the possibility of a catastrophic collapse. Picture New Orleans when the levees overtopped; now picture the flooding going global...
...because they're cute or cuddly (they're actually ferocious and not opposed to cannibalism), but because it is eminently clear that climate change is killing them. Polar bears depend on solid sea ice for survival; it's where they do their hunting. But when the ice begins to melt - as it has in recent years, thanks largely to warming - the bears can starve...
...world. While scholars from throughout the world were allowed to come and study at the library, texts were not to be shared with other countries. The Ptolemies banned the exportation of papyrus and confiscated many a scroll from Alexandria’s visitors. Why should the fact of power melt away now, just because we’ve changed mediums from the physical to the digital?Power relations are implicated in any library, when knowledge is concentrated under the auspices of any single force. Google Book Search really does not change the game. It merely translates the outdated paradigm...
...That doesn't mean we should expect Asian nations to immediately start shooting wars over access to the Mekong or the Yalu - though all bets are off if climate change leads to the loss of the Himalayan glaciers whose seasonal melt provides water for billions in Asia. In fact, the history of cross-border water disputes has been surprisingly conciliatory so far. India and Pakistan have fought three wars and currently point nuclear weapons at each other, yet the Indus Waters Treaty - which divvies up the two countries' trans-boundary waterways, overseen by a joint commission - has survived for decades...