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Guess what? A chunk of ice bigger than New York City recently broke off the ice shelf in Antarctica. The continent has been recording some of its warmest days ever and that ice seems to be breaking off at an alarming rate. Before you ask, yes, we are talking about net loss.\xa0

If you are thinking about the potential effects of that if the trend should continue - good. There is so much ice on the massive continent that if all of it melted, it would raise sea level by 180ft. Not quite the way the world looks in Waterworld, but certainly there would be a lot less land.

Of course, all of that ice is highly unlikely to melt and certainly won\u2019t do so overnight. That doesn\u2019t mean there aren\u2019t some immediate effects that we should concern ourselves with. One aspect is all of the freshwater that is getting added into the ocean. As that melts, the ocean\u2019s salt and minerals are diluted, potentially disrupting sensitive ecosystems.\xa0

It actually reminds me of another movie, The Day After Tomorrow. While the scenario in the film is outlandish, its premise is founded in a grain of truth. There has been a concern in the past that melting ice at the North Pole would disrupt the Trans-Atlantic Current (TAC). All the freshwater, being lighter than salt water, would in effect submerge the current, interrupting the flow of warm water the TAC brings up from the Caribbean. Some scientists believe that may be what caused the Little Ice Age from roughly 1300 \u2013 1850 AD. This makes sense as immediately preceding that time frame was the equally well-known Medieval Warming Period.\xa0

The water from melting Antarctic ice is not terribly likely to directly affect the TAC, yet it could have an effect on weather in Australia by disrupting local water currents. The warmer water, in general, could also weaken the polar vortex at the South Pole. The vortex is created because of the difference in temperature between the water immediately around the frozen continent and the warmer water that comes down from the equatorial region. Less temperature difference equals a weaker vortex, which could lead to warmer and drier weather in Australia. If you remember the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, large swaths of Australia were a blazing hell-scape that at one point even rained fire. I\u2019m sure they would like less of that, not more.\xa0

That begs the question, how does one make that happen? Most of us lack the resources to have any significant impact all by ourselves, positive or negative. However, when a large number of people all take action in a particular direction, the results can be astonishing, even though the action taken by one person seems insignificant. For those who fly, maybe the business can have their meetings on Zoom instead. Yes, the Davos crowd would do well to put their money where their mouths are on this one. Don\u2019t fly? Maybe one less steak a week. How does that affect anything? Cows take up a lot of land. A whole lot. That usually leads to the cutting down of lots of CO2 processing trees to make room for the bovine methane generators. A little less consumption on the part of everyone can save acres of rainforest. You most likely drive. Make your next car something more fuel efficient. In the meantime, getting all of your shopping done in one shot and cutting down on those trips to town wouldn\u2019t hurt.\xa0

Yes, these are all individually insignificant. But if a billion people around the world did it, it would add up to a big gain. You could then share the changes you\u2019ve made via TARTLE, making it possible to track the effects, and determine what had the biggest net gain so people can actually see the results and use them to determine their own course of action. And maybe, that ice will melt just a little bit slower.

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Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.

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