News Notes: 13 August 2023

[dewline]

1. Thwaites' Glacier is no more.

2. I'm not living in any of the affected houses. I've learned from my circles of family and friends, though, that basement window wells are...problematic as well during such rainfall.

3. Another side effect of recent rainfall here. One of the buildings affected houses a past employer of mine. I want to check in with them on Monday morning out of concern.

4. And yeah, we may have voted badly last year.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/residents-councillors-flash-flood-1.6933278

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

Looking for other current news about the Thwaites glacier as the Atlantic article is behind a paywall, and not finding any -- can you summarize?

The most recent stuff I can find is from June.

[arlie]

Not too many years ago, when I was thinking about where to retire, I imagined returning to Ottawa in part as a way to be less likely to be affected by especially nasty effects of climate change. Unfortunately (?) my housemate refused to move. This year makes me doubt my prior expectations for Ottawa.

[dewline]

Basically, the Thwaites Glacier collapsed and the author was able to witness that first-hand back in February 2019.

[princessofgeeks]

I may subscribe to the Atlantic just to get to read that and try to understand.

Because as far as I can tell the glacier and its ice shelf have not collapsed.

[dewline]

Check with your local public library to see if you can get online access through them first.

[dewline]

It still depends on where in the city your housing and/or workspace is, it seems.

[ratcreature]

That glacier is still there, though melting. The author of that article visited the calving edge in 2019 with an expedition and has now published her book, which is why there is the Atlantic article now rather than any further current events with that glacier (aside from it melting alarmingly quickly still, presumably).

The expedition back then observed it calving and breaking up much faster than in previous decades and also worse than models predicted, iirc, also some cavity beneath was found weakening it from below.

While I haven't read the paywalled Atlantic article, there was a BBC Travel website interview from today about the book, in which she calls what they observed then "collapse event", which I guess it was (and is) in the ongoing sense that the glacier is melting, but the whole giant glacier hasn't finished collapsing already: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230814-elizabeth-rush-on-her-epic-journey-to-earths-doomsday-glacier

[princessofgeeks]

Thank you so much! I will check out the BBC article. There was a LOT of press/media about the 2019 expedition. I didn't realize that particular person had written a book; that is fascinating too.