Article: Looming Floods, Threatened Cities
Read through Part 2 of The New York Times’s Antarctic Dispatches series, paying particular attention to the maps at the top of the article. Watch the very short immersive video near the bottom of the article, showing an aerial view of the Ross Ice Shelf.
What do you notice about the ice that is visible in the video? Think about what you’ve read, and make a list of any questions that you have.
Questions for Comprehension and Analysis
1. What percentage of the Earth’s freshwater is locked in Antarctica’s ice sheets?
2. Why is much of West Antarctica’s ice especially vulnerable to ocean heat? If Antarctica collapses, what is the risk for the coastal cities of the world?
3. What does Terence J. Hughes, a retired University of Maine glaciologist living in South Dakota, think about biblical floods and other ancient literature? Why?
4. What did Robert M. DeConto of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and David Pollard of Pennsylvania State University discover in a 2016 study that raised alarm worldwide?
5. What have the National Science Foundation in Washington and the Natural Environment Research Council in Britain decided to do over the next few years, and why?
What Do You Think?
Read through Part 3 of the series here.
Find the section of the article that reports on the study that used a computer model to predict what would happen if emissions were reduced sharply over the next few decades, in line with international climate goals. Under the most ambitious scenarios, scientists found a strong likelihood that Antarctica would remain fairly stable.
Do you think the world and its leaders can, and will, work toward this common goal? Why or why not? And if so, how?