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这使得思韦茨和松岛的冰架对海洋、大气和海冰的极端气候变化更加敏感。科学家们说,如果思韦茨岛和松岛不稳定,邻近的几个地区也会分崩离析,造成大范围的坍塌。科学家们说,仅斯韦茨就可能导致海平面上升约10英尺。
来尝试一个粗略的计算(并显示一些努力):据说地球的表面积约为5.1亿平方公里,其中71%是水,而不是陆地,所以是3.62亿平方公里。这乘以海平面变化10英尺(0.003048公里)得到的体积是110万公里^3。 The Thwaites glacier's basin area is said to be about 192,000 km^2. (I know I haven't accounted for the difference in volume of liquid water versus ice, and probably other factors, but I'm just trying to see if the answer is within an order of magnitude of what makes sense to me.) To have a volume of 1.1 million km^3 with a basin area of 192,000 km^2, the glacier would have to be over 5 km in height. That's more than 10 Empire State Buildings, or nearly twice the Burj Khalifa, in height. Are glaciers actually that massive? I can't seem to find out the height of this glacier anywhere for some reason. Probably for a good reason (it's complicated).