The Hidden Risk Behind Melting Glaciers

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Antarctica's glaciers are collapsing
from below and faster than we thought.

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We've been looking at
Antarctica the wrong way.

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The biggest threat to its
glaciers isn't coming from the

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air in the warm atmosphere.

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It's coming from the Ocean beneath
them, and it's accelerating.

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This is the How to Protect the Ocean
Podcast, your weekday Ocean news update.

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If you care about staying informed
on the Ocean every weekday, hit that

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talk to people from Ocean Networks
Canada engineers who have gone down to

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Antarctica to install data acquisition
systems, and they talk about what

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it's like to work in Antarctica.

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So if you wanna know what it's like
to be a field biologist or a field

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mechanic or engineer in Antarctica, then
you don't wanna miss tomorrow's story.

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Antarctic glaciers flow from
the land into the Ocean.

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At the edge they form ice shelves.

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Floating extensions of ice.

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Now these shelves are very important.

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They act like buttresses.

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They slow down inland ice flow, and
they stabilize the entire system.

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And if you know how important stability
is, you would've listened to my episode

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from yesterday that we talked about
emperor penguins and their reproductive

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stability that they require, right?

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The stability they require
for the reproductive cycle.

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Now, if the shelves weaken,
glaciers accelerate.

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So think about a dam.

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You have this structure
that is holding water back.

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Now, if there is a hole in
this structure, water starts

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spurting out in different things.

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If you watch any kind of cartoon where you
see a dam kind of burst, you start to see

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the water kind of spurred out and there's
like an animal that comes in either

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foghorn langhorn or somebody tries to

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plug it with their finger and then
another hole comes up, they chew it all

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in and they got their feet involved.

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And it's kind of funny.

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That's a funny part
because it's a cartoon.

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It's not real.

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But when a dam bursts, all the
water flows out and it's the same

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thing with the edge of the ice.

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If that ice shelf kind of bursts
all the broken up ice just kind

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of flows out and into the Ocean.

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It can be a very scary thing to see.

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It's kind of interesting to see, but
it's something that's very weird and not

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normal to see, although we're kind of
normalizing it now with climate change.

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Now, the key driver here of warm deep
water is the circumpolar deep water.

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The CDW is what we're
gonna call it from now on.

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This relatively warm water moves onto
the continental shelf, flows under ice

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shelves, and melts them from below.

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Now this process is called basal melting.

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And basal melting is essentially, it's
warm, but it's still near freezing.

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It's warmer than the surrounding
waters, but it's still pretty cold.

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Any kind of small temperature
difference when you're looking at ice.

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If you put ice in a cup underneath
a faucet and you start to increase

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the temperature just a little,
little bit, you'll start to

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see that ice melting pretty fast

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'cause it's used to cold, cold areas.

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And once you see a small
temperature change, you see that

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change in that piece of ice.

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So recent field studies are using
autonomous underwater vehicles, AUVs.

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They're using moorings, they use
satellite imagery, and they have revealed

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that melt rates are highly uneven.

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It's not that it's just
constantly going up.

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Warm water pulses can
rapidly increase melting.

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So as we see this not being uniform.

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Right melting.

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It's starting to just kinda like come
in in different pulses where warm

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water gets shut up every once in a
while and they increase the melting.

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And some areas are far more
vulnerable than expected,

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so it's not uniform melting.

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It's targeted weakening
of these sort of edges.

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And that's where we're gonna see problems.

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It's hard to study ice 'cause it looks
like it's one thing, but there's different

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parts of the ice that make it interesting.

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I am not an expert in that, but
imagine like thinking about like

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area that is eroding on the inside.

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Things are starting to melt so
that ice is starting to break up.

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But once the edge goes,
that's when you really see it.

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That edge doesn't go, then you
won't really see it right away

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'cause it's kind of keeping it intact.

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But once you get that one
break, everything goes.

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So the way these glaciers, the glacier
is a major focus because it's grounded

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below sea level and it's vulnerable
to Marine ice sheet instability.

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Okay.

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So it's very important.

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Now, recent findings of this
glacier shows that ice shelf

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fractures are actually expanding.

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And the grounding line retreat is
accelerating and collapse could trigger

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wider west Antarctic instability.

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That's a big change.

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We don't wanna see that.

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Now when we look at Marine ice
sheet instability, it's one

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of the most important concepts.

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If a glacier sits on a slope that
deepens inland, then as it retreats,

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it becomes more unstable and
retreat accelerates automatically.

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This creates a self-reinforcing
collapsed process.

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And I know that's complicated 'cause it
took me a while to kind of figure it out.

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But essentially what's happening
is, as everything is starting to

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melt slowly and non uniformly,
it's starting to break it all up.

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And as we start to see retreat,
it just becomes more and more

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unstable 'cause the inner parts
are getting more and more unstable.

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Now some of the models that were
run back in the day, they didn't

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fully capture Ocean heat transport.

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And so , they underestimated the risk
and because they simplified ice self

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structure and they underestimated the
fracture dynamics of these glaciers.

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And so new models are showing
faster timelines and higher

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C level contributions.

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Now climate models are really interesting
'cause a lot of people are like, oh,

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models are so bad for like, it's a
frustrating topic to talk about because

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models are models and they're as
good as the data that goes into them.

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And as we learn more and more about
these models and we learn more and more

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about climate change and geophysical
dynamics of the planet and ice movement

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and ice sheet dynamics and so forth and
melting and all these different terms

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that, frankly, sometimes
I don't even understand.

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The models become more accurate
as we start to move forward.

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They evolve and they
get better and better.

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So we make less assumptions because
we may have more data or we may

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understand a specific process that
allows us to pinpoint certain aspects.

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But the fact is that these climate
models are starting to target

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more things and they're starting
to predict that we underestimated

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the results that we predicted
before and now it's getting faster.

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So instead of getting melting slower,
we're actually seeing faster melting.

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Science changes that way.

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It's never perfect.

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And a lot of people are like, well, that
perfection can really overestimate things.

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And at times, yes, it
can overestimate things.

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That's why it's science.

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There's no emotional
involvement in science.

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It's math.

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And the math either tells you,
you are doing correct, you're

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accurate or you're not accurate.

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And sometimes the methods are not great
and we start to learn certain things

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and we start to get better at them.

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But it very rarely shows that
we're actually overestimating

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things when we use models.

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We actually are underestimating
things a lot of the times, especially

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when it comes to climate change.

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And that can be a dangerous
thing to think about.

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So if we don't adhere to the original
models and we don't throw caution

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in the wind like we didn't do before,
we're in trouble and this is what

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happens when we ignore the science.

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And so like, when we
look at sea level rise

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and what it really means when
we start to see ice melt and

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the sea level getting increase.

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If major Antarctic glaciers destabilize,
sea level rise accelerates globally.

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Think about that.

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If the glaciers starts to destabilize,
which they are destabilizing, sea

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level rise will accelerate globally.

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We'll start to see those changes.

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Even a partial collapse could mean tens
of centimeters to meters over time.

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It doesn't sound like a lot, but when
you have some low lying areas, including

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the US in certain parts of the US and
Canada and other places, tens of

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centimeters to meters actually makes a
huge difference because our sea level,

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where we are with land sometimes is not

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above sea level.

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Usually it's below sea level.

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And so certain areas are gonna
be more vulnerable than others.

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And those are just, just above sea level,
which won't be in the future Florida.

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And so that will be interesting.

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Now, of course, this affects coastal
cities, infrastructure and entire nations,

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especially when we look at like these
smaller islands that are sitting docks

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and they're trying to just live the
life that they live and they have to

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be in an area where they're vulnerable.

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Turks and Caicos is gonna be vulnerable.

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Certain parts of the Bahamas
are gonna be vulnerable.

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There's islands in the Southeast
Pacific that have already had

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to move, like smaller islands
that we may not even know of.

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But I know populations have had to move.

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Indigenous populations have had
to move after being there for

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centuries, maybe longer, millennia.

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It's a difficult thing to watch
from a human perspective because

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this is like culture and history
and lives are being affected.

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Melting Antarctic ice can also
affect the Ocean salinity because

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you're getting a fresher water in the
system and a lot more fresher water.

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And then, of course, Ocean
circulation patterns, global

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ocean circulation patterns.

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The amoc system.

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As we get more fresh water on
the top, it caps the warmer

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salt water from evaporating.

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It's gonna be a mess.

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And of course, you have fresh water input
that can disrupt deep water formation

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and then alter climate systems as well.

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Are we near a tipping point?

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Scientists are asking like,
are there some glaciers already

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past the point of no return?

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We don't fully know, but the signs
of instability are increasing.

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And that's something that will put
us more towards a tipping point.

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This is not just
over-hyping the situation.

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This is telling you that worldwide
scientists have been seeing this for a

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while and it's getting worse and worse.

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And so when I say we have
to act, we have to act.

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This is not where we can elect anybody.

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Who's just coming up?

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That's a reality star and just doesn't
understand science and doesn't understand

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the world, but understands money.

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It's not just about the
economy, it's about our planet.

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And it's about when we start talking
about the polls, you have to be in

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a negative situation because you're
like a negative messaging because the

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polls are important to us and we're
treating 'em like crap, to be honest.

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Antarctica is not just melting, it's
actually destabilizing from below.

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And once that process starts,
it's very difficult to stop.

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And so when we talk about tipping
points, we may already be there.

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I have no idea.

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It's something that's really hard to do.

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But it's not all bad.

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We are seeing people
getting, gathering more data.

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We are seeing people working and
doing the good fight to work in the

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courts to stop governments from doing
what they're doing to harm the Ocean

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worse or harm the planet even worse.

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We are seeing people who are acting,
whether in businesses and nonprofits

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and academic institutions and government
and the people who work in government,

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the civilians, not the politicians.

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They're actually working
to help the Ocean.

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And I think that's really important.

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So if you want to hear good news
and there will be more good news

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later on, I promise, I swear to
God, follow the podcast for more

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Ocean science and conservation that
connects you directly to your world.

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That's what we're here to do here at
the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

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I'm your host Andrew Lewin.

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thank you so much for listening.

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I hope you tune in tomorrow to hear from
Ocean Networks Canada engineers and what

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that was like to work in Antarctica.

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Thank you so much for joining
me on today's episode of the How

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to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

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Have a great day.

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We'll talk to you tomorrow
and happy conservation.