Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
As icebergs drifted by his Antarctica-bound ship, David Holland spoke this week of how the melting glacier he's cruising towards may contain warning signals for the coasts of far-off Canada.
The atmospheric and ocean scientist from Newfoundland is part of an expedition to one of the world's most frigid and remote spots -- the Thwaites glacier in the western portion of the continent -- where he'll measure water temperatures in an undersea channel the size of Manhattan.
"The question of whether sea level will change can only be answered by looking at the planet where it matters, and that is at Thwaites," said Holland, director of the environmental fluid dynamics laboratory at New York University, during a satellite phone interview from aboard the South Korean icebreaker Araon.
It's over 16,000 kilometres from Holland's hometown in Brigus, N.L., on Conception Bay, to the site about 100 kilometres inland from the "grounding zone" where the Thwaites' glacier leaves the continent and extends over the Pacific.
The team's 20,000 tonnes of drilling gear will be assembled to measure the temperatures, salinity and turbulence of the Pacific waters that have crept underneath and are lapping away at the guts of the glacier.
"If it (the water) is above freezing, and in salt water this means above -2 centigrade, that's not sustainable. A glacier can't survive that," said Holland.
Since 2018, more than 60 scientists from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration group have been exploring the ocean and marine sediments, measuring warming currents flowing toward the deep ice, and examining the stretching, bending, and grinding of the glacier over the landscape below.
The Florida-sized Thwaites glacier faces the Amundsen Sea, and researchers have suggested in journal articles over the past decade it may eventually lose large amounts of ice because of deep, warm water driven into the area as the planet warms.
Some media have dubbed Thwaites the "doomsday glacier" due to estimates that it could add about 65 centimetres to global sea level rise.
Holland notes current research models mainly suggest this would happen over several centuries, however there are also lower probability theories of "catastrophic collapse" occurring, where the massive ice shelf melts in the space of decades. "We want to pay attention to things that are plausible, and rapid collapse of that glacier is a possibility," he said.
While Holland looks at the undersea melting, other scientists are examining how the land-based portions of Antarctic glaciers are losing their grip on points of attachment to the seabed, potentially causing parts to detach. Still other researchers point to the risk of initial fractures causing the ice shelf to break, much like a damaged car windshield.
All of the mechanisms must be carefully observed to prove or disprove models on the rates of melting, said Holland.
"If the (water-filled) cave beneath the glacier we're studying gets bigger, then Antarctica is losing ice and retreating, and if the cave collapses on itself, then (the cave) will disappear. This is how Antarctica can retreat, these kinds of specific events," he said.
The implications of the glacier work reach back to Atlantic Canada -- which along with communities along the Beaufort Sea and in southwestern British Columbia is the region most vulnerable to sea level rise in the country, according to federal scientists.
Everything from how to calculate the future height of dikes at the low-lying Chignecto Isthmus -- the narrow band of land that connects Nova Scotia to the rest of the country -- to whether the Fraser River lowlands may face flooding is potentially affected by glacial melting in Antarctica, he said.
Scenarios where Antarctica ice melts more quickly than expected are briefly discussed in the 2019 federal report Canada's Changing Climate. Based largely on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that refer to them as low-probability "tipping point" theories, the 2019 report invoked the possibility of one metre of sea level rise by 2100.
However, Blair Greenan, a federal oceanographer who oversaw the relevant chapter of the report, said in a recent interview that a rise in global sea levels approaching two metres by 2100 and five metres by 2150 "cannot be ruled out" due to uncertainty over ice sheet processes like Thwaites.
"We don't know, nobody knows," Holland said. "But it's plausible these things can change, and several feet of sea level change would have a major impact on Atlantic Canada. What's needed is glacier forecasting that resembles the kinds of accuracy that weather forecasting currently provides."
However, collecting glacier forecast data is a daunting undertaking in the short period -- from late January until mid-February -- when scientists can safely take readings. Helicopters will be ferrying a hot water drill, 30 barrels of fuel and water to Holland's site beginning near the end of January.
The drill will have to penetrate over a kilometre of ice to reach the 300 metres of undersea channel to take measurements.
As the data is collected, some scientists question whether there's really much for Canadian coastal residents to worry about at this stage.
One study by Ian Joughin, a University of Washington glaciologist, has suggested Thwaites will only lose ice at a rate that creates sea level rise of one millimetre per year -- and not until next century. At that rate it would take 100 years for sea levels to rise 10 centimetres.
In a telephone interview last week, Joughin said planning coastal protection and other measures for the more extreme scenarios may not be cost effective at this point, as it may take up to a century before the major risks starts to unfold.
However, Joanna Eyquem, a Montreal-based geoscientist who is studying ways to prepare infrastructure for rising sea levels, said in a recent email that glacier research shows sea level forecasts "are constantly evolving," and adaptation efforts need to be quicker.
"The question is: How desperate does the situation need to be before we take action?" she asked.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 23, 2022.
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
Boeing said Wednesday that it lost US$355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers.
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.