Duthie Park and ice shelves

I took this photo of Duthie Park today. I love watching the plants change as we move deeper into spring. There’s about to be an explosion of green there as all the buds on the trees open up probably in the next week or so. Duthie Park is a gorgeous place: great for running, walking, cycling, playing in one of the many playgrounds there, or wandering through the winter gardens.

There’s a good interview with Tim Naish, Director of the Antarctic Research Centre at Victoria University, on Kim Hill’s Radio NZ program from last month. He explains the difference between ice sheets, ice shelves, and sea ice rather well. He also discusses tipping points and why these are something we should be concerned about. Most of the heat from climate change is going into the oceans and the oceans take a very long time to warm. But once they’ve warmed, they will take thousands of years to cool down again.

They know that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet disappears at about 400ppm of CO2 which is where we are now and there’s about 3-4m of sea level rise in that alone. If all of Antarctica melted the seas would rise by 50m. Here’s the interview if you want to listen it:

Source: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/20150328