Title: Antarctic Blast
Author: D. Charles Miller
Copyright 2015 David C. Miller
Antarctic Blast
It was a sunny day on the campus of MIT as Dr. Joseph Collins sat in his office mulling over the latest ice flow data from Antarctica. His computer had crunched the numbers and had spit out all sorts of pretty graphs and images for him to study. Joe’s primary interest was on how global warming was affecting the largest ice sheets on the planet, and what that meant for future sea levels. He was trying to find a good place to stop, so that he could go to lunch with his friend Mark, a professor in the Math department. Mark would be there soon, and he doesn’t wait well. He tends to get into things to distract himself when he gets impatient.
Joe needed about another ten to fifteen minutes when Mark arrived at his office. As usual Mark was fidgety. He was Joe’s best friend, but Mark’s impatience tended to get on Joe’s nerves. Mark started going through Joe’s papers, and as he was looking at the colored graphics, he began to laugh.
“Oh, I’ve seen this before.” He said.
“Seen what?”
“You have a critical zone forming in this region. I know the pattern. I’ve seen it many times in my computer simulations.”
“Your work has nothing to do with ice flows.”
“No, but it has everything to do with stability analysis. You know what I’m into: chaos theory, critical points and regions of instability. It does have applications to physical systems, and I tell you that this location should be the focus of some attention.”
“Maybe we should collaborate and examine my data using your algorithms. I’ve kind of hit a plateau in my analysis.”
“Yeah, that would be fun. I already have all the software, and the modifications needed would be minimal. I can have one of my grad-students work on it. You types are always telling me that I have my head in the clouds and should do something with real world applications. After we do this, maybe you guys will quiet up.”
“Not a chance, but it should be interesting to get a new view on this stuff.”
“Now that that’s settled, can we please go to lunch? I’m starving.”
After several weeks of intense collaboration, a new model for the stability of the Antarctic ice sheets started to emerge. It predicted two critical zones in the area of the undersea ridge that keeps the Thwaites Glacier in the west Antarctic from sliding into the ocean. This was not all that surprising, since the Thwaites Glacier was already considered to be unstable and was predicted to slide into the sea in the next century or two, which could have the effect of raising global sea levels up to three meters. Having the new model agree with other models, gave credence to its reliability. What was new, was that it also predicted critical areas near the grounding zones and origins for all the major west Antarctic ice sheets as well as for the Wilkes ice sheet in east Antarctica. The Wilkes ice sheet was once thought to be stable.
What all these ice sheets had in common were that they were supported by ground that was below sea level and were bolstered by shelves of floating ice that were hung up on catch points. Enough water was contained in these ice sheets to raise sea levels between twenty to thirty feet. They did not need to melt for this to happen. If they slid into the ocean or were floated of their moorings, it would have the same effect as dropping an ice cube into a glass of water. If the any of these glaciers collapsed, the increase in sea level could create a chain reaction destabilizing the rest. Just because these critical zones were forming did not mean that the ice sheets would be lost anytime soon, but rising global temperatures did put them at risk. The value of the model was that it identified areas of ice which needed more intense study. These zones could also become quite significant in the event of seismic or volcanic activity. Even the impact of a small asteroid in their vicinity could have devastating consequences.
Mark and Joe presented their findings at a lecture symposium at MIT. Sitting in the back of the room was a bright undergraduate physics major named Gabriel. He was in the air force ROTC and was also a member of the Navigators. The Navigators are a Christian fundamentalist organization that is very prominent in Colorado Springs and has a large following at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Gabriel was from Georgia, and his southern accent was a little out of place at MIT. Despite his fundamentalist upbringing and conservative views, he was interested in studying ice flows and climate change. He believed that climate change was caused by God and not man. He wanted to study the creator’s handiwork.
Mark and Joe published their findings and then presented them at the next climate change conference. Their work was well received at the conference, but their requests that monitoring stations be placed at these locations was not seriously considered. Antarctica is an extreme environment, and monitoring stations particularly manned ones were very expensive and required international cooperation. It was decided that the conference would recommend that these sites should get more aerial and satellite coverage.
Gabriel graduated that year and went on to fulfill his commitment to the air force. He was hoping to get into a division that rendered support for scientific research. While living on base, he attended weekly meetings with other Navigators. They harassed him some for wanting to do research on global warming for many of them were climate change deniers. He was able to convince a few of them to his point of view: That global warming was real, but that it was caused by God. God had a plan for a warmer Earth and higher sea levels.
One of the men he convinced was Captain William Lee, a fellow southerner who boasted that he was a direct descendant of General Robert E. Lee. They had endless conversations about why God would want higher sea levels. One idea they thought to be the likely reason, was that more people were leaving small towns and rural areas where faith was strong to move to bigger cities, especially to ones along the coast where godlessness was on the rise. Maybe God wanted them to move back. Maybe he wanted vast populations to migrate inland to where God’s influence was stronger.
What Gabriel did not know was that William was a member of the Brothers of Ehud. The Brothers of Ehud were a clandestine group of the most extreme Christian fundamentalists, and they recruited many of their members from the Navigators. The Brotherhood was named for the Biblical character Ehud from the Book of Judges chapter three. In the Book of Judges, the people of Israel were under the subjugation of the king of Moab and suffering greatly. Ehud fashioned himself a new weapon, a short double edged sword, and by deception he was able to assassinate the king of Moab and then free the people of Israel. The Brotherhood had a similar agenda: “By new weapons and deception, we will bring about the will of God.”
The Brotherhood had among its membership many Air Force Academy graduates, some of which had attained ranks as high as colonel. For decades they have been planning ways to secure nuclear weapons for the coming Armageddon, as a backup in case the U.S. government was aligned with Satan. In August 29, 2007, six nuclear warheads went temporarily missing. It caused a minor scandal, and then the incident was soon forgotten. In actuality, this was a test implemented by the Brothers of Ehud.
William read the journal article by Dr. Joseph Collins that Gabe had given him. When he saw the locations of the critical zones shown on the map, he had an epiphany as if God was speaking directly to him. God was creating the conditions by which the Brotherhood could act to bring the United States, God’s chosen nation, under God’s rule.
Captain Lee researched Professor Collins on the internet and found that the Professor was now an activist for having these sites extensively monitored. The good doctor was starting to gain the ears of a few congressmen and was stirring up some of the larger environmental lobbying groups. He had even appealed to the United Nations. The Captain started to se
e Dr. Joe as becoming a possible obstacle to his revelation.
Captain Lee needed to consult the Colonel. The Colonel was the highest ranking officer in his section of the Brotherhood, and hence all courses of action needed to be brought to his attention first. If the action was considered worthy, the Colonel would present the plan to the council. If not, he had the authority to dismiss it outright. A plan of this magnitude and risk would need to be believed that it had been divinely inspired.
“Colonel, I have had a revelation that I believe to be given to me by God.”
“Go on, Captain.”
“Through providence, I have been made aware that because of God’s warming of the climate, the Antarctic ice sheets are becoming unstable with very specific zones of instability.”
“How does this have anything to do with us?”
“A nuclear strike on these locations could have the effect of raising sea levels significantly. This would drive people from the godless coastal cities inland into the arms of the faithful. The resulting turmoil and disruption could destabilize the government sufficiently enough to allow God’s chosen to take power.”
“Wouldn’t this make our country vulnerable to