Ward Hunt Ice Shelf Breaks In Two

heidi writes "CNN has this story on the breakup of the largest ice cap. A permanent feature for the previous 3,000 years, it has broken into two pieces. "The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory, broke into two main parts, themselves cut through with fissures. A freshwater lake drained into the sea, the researchers reported.""

Comments

Global Warming & The One World Government

[Anonymous Coward]

It is probably a good time to post this:

Bush covers up climate research (again)

The global conveyer

[MrLint]

I wonder what, if any, effect the draining of the fresh water lake into the sea will have on "the global conveyer. There was some speculation that the melting ice caps will release so much fresh water into the system the salinity and temperature difference that dries this engine will break down, and the CO2 that it deposits in the deep water will also stop. Is anyone an oceanologist?

Re:The global conveyer

[bm_luethke]

Hmm, what? I agree there (was the above post meant to disagree with me?) - that just wasn't the answer to the question asked (what would happen to the oceans).

I basically said the same thing you said to someone else below. Nothing now is extreme - people worry about how a non-extreme setting is going to affect everything (usually with dire consequences). Usually those same people have no real idea how rapid or extreme differences have been in the past. Obviously something happened back then to cause both the cooling and subsequent heating. Obviously it wasn't us. It can be shown to have happened VERY rapidly. And, as you say, who knows why?

I ended my college career in CS (the geology depart had two professors leave, two die, and one half retire over a single summer pretty much killing the dept). Since then I worked for several years at a national lab in the cluster computing dept, many of the weather people ran thier codes on our clusters. It was amazing having them call and complain that the cluster is slow only to find out that they spawned all thier processes on the head node instead of across the 64 nodes (what - you mean I need to add machines to the virtual machine?). I always wondered how accurate thier models were after seeing that simple of a thing screwed up - even assuming that they actually understood the geological processes.

Truly Terrifying

[foo fighter]

I've been on large, frozen lakes before ice-fishing when they split. I forget the technical term, but basically a huge, long crack appears out of nowhere with a horrifying sound. (Devils Lake, ND is the second largest closed basin lake in North America, after the Great Salt Lake. When Devils Lake splits you don't want to be near it. I was on it when it happened a few years ago, and I damn near literally shit my pants.)

I can't even imagine the terror of an entire ice shelf splitting. The reuters article doesn't mention if this was a slow or fast occurance.

Even scarier, we're several thousand years past due on the next ice age. This "global warming" thing could actually be the precursor to the beginning of the next, depending on which cadre of scientists you believe.

Re:Truly Terrifying

[evilWurst]

"Even scarier, we're several thousand years past due on the next ice age. This "global warming" thing could actually be the precursor to the beginning of the next, depending on which cadre of scientists you believe."

The ice age stats aren't quite that precise - there are up to tens of thousands of years of wiggle room. I'm more worried about the vast amounts of fresh water dumped into the arctic by this - fresh and salt water in the arctic actually stay seperate, and if the fresh water flow pushes far enough south it'll change the warm/cold ocean currents. It might not cause a global ice age, but it sure could make a big chunk of Europe uninhabitable (by making it as cold as other places at the same latitude are).

Re:Truly Terrifying

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't say I've been on Devil's Lake, but I have been on Lake Superior when it is frozen. It froze over last winter, actually.

Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world (about 31,000 square miles in area). People who haven't seen it are generally amazed when they actually do. It's much more like a small freshwater sea than a lake, actually.

I have been walking on Lake Superior (don't ask) when it is calving/fissuring/heaving/whatever you want to call it, and it is scary as hell. It sounds as if the entire area surrounding you is going to open up in one sudden implosion, swallowing you whole. It's difficult to describe, but it's not a high cracking noise--it's lower in pitch, more booming or thundering. Imagine the sound of thunder coming from under your feet. That's almost what it sounds like.

You never quite get used to that sound.

Arctic meltdown...

[Black Parrot]

The October 2003 Scientific American has a feature article on all the warming problems the Arctic has been undergoing. This is just one more in the pile...

According to the article, scientists are witholding judgement over whether this is a symptom of global warming: the arctic is such a complex place with so many feedback and self-regulating systems that the case simply isn't clear yet.

Now remember kiddies

[Gortbusters.org]

The ice is already in the water (ocean), so melting it is not going to increase the sea levels. Remember, water expands when it freezes and it goes back down when you melt it. If you don't believe me, fill a glass full of water and put it in the freezer.

As the earth is still coming out of its last ice age, we shouldn't be too concerned about global warming. What we should be concerned about is desertification due to the lack of vegitation and depletion of the Ozone. Given the natural course of things, the earth will make big dinosaurs, not silly monkeys who play on computers and bitch at eachother.

Anyone else up for a nice honda civic hybrid yet? :)

Re:Now remember kiddies

[Orne]

"What we should be concerned about is desertification due to the lack of veg(e)tation"

Yet, science is uncovering that the opposite is happening, as an increase in CO2 levels may help forests to start reclaiming the world's deserts, as forests are encroaching on the Negev desert. Higher CO2 concentrations reduces water absorption of trees, leaving more available for the surrounding regions, which resulted in more vegetation.

NASA & DOE found the same thing, as did the National Academy of Sciences when they found that grasslands become wetter as temperatures rise. Hotter temperatures kills off certain species of grasses that are poor water storers, leaving more room for more efficient species like oaks and summer flowers, with a net increase in water retention.

The more we do true research into global warming, the more we find that our models are wrong, our assumtions are wrong, and our predjudices are wrong.

Re:Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

That just shows it's good, objective science. Meaning that despite their suspicion global warming is playing a part in this, they are remaining healthfully skeptical.

Skepticism is the cornerstone to good research. Unfortunately, global warming naysayers view it as weakness or a lack of confidence. Even Einstein's Noble Prize made no mention of relativity, because it was still a little too unprovable at the time.

All part of the cycle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Had we been living 50,000 years ago, I wonder if we would have blamed the melting of the Bering Strait ice bridge on global warming.

Article discussed Global Warming

[billstewart]

If you RTFA, you'll see them discussing that they don't know whether this is global warming or just regional warming.
Not mentioned in the article, but relevant, is that in some parts of the Canadian Arctic, I think including this area, the local Inuit had stopped making kayaks for some centuries, and had to relearn in the mid-1800s when the weather got enough warmer that kayaks were useful again. Don't know if that's global warming or just regional either.

Re:Article discussed Global Warming

[heretic9]

This is well-attested in older historical sources. For example, in the reign of Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603), the Thames regularly froze over in winter. The English used to skate on the ice in London. Therefore we know it used to be colder than it is today.

Older annals show that the Vikings sailed out of Norwegian ports that are permanently ice-bound today in the 7th and 8th centuries. Therefore we know it used to be warmer than it is today.

Re:So sad

[CyberDave]

The professor of one of my anthropology courses mentioned that one of his colleagues has another theory for global warming.

If I remember correctly, it goes something like this:

Since about the 1960s or so, temperatures from monitoring stations in Siberia were no longer included in the figures uses to compute the average temperature of the Earth. Since it's cold there, those numbers would decrease the overall average. But since those numbers aren't being included, the average temperature appears to have risen.

Now this is just another possible explanation for global warming that I've heard. I've not looked into it myself to see if it has any basis in fact.

Personally, I don't dispute that global warming is happening. I do, however, strongly dispute the general idea that excess greenhouse gases generated by man are the sole cause of global warming. I think there just simply not enough evidence to draw any solid conclusions at this point; everything is just a guess.

I think I have even seen evidence based on rocks or some other geological evidence that suggest that variations in the Earth's temperature are normal over many thousands of years.

(My opinion: it's probably a combination of factors that is leading to global warming. Greenhouse gases, solar radiation, and a few other things).

(I got in an argument once with a professor about global warming and I ended up losing, mostly because he was stubborn and wouldn't accept any of the claims I was trying to present, most of which are on the list in the parent post. Pardon me if I sound a bit bitter because of that.)

CyberDave

Interesting ?

[MosesJones]

Good god. This was modded up. Okay here is another experiment for you. Place an object in water and see how much it displaces... this is called the VOLUME. 1/8th of an Iceberg or Pack-Ice shelf is ABOVE water and therefore NOT displacing anything but air. If water expands by less than 1/8th of its volume on freezing then freezing will result in an increase in the water level. Added to this the fact that an increase in temp will also expand a liquid, and that a fraction of a % on an ocean is a bloody big number.

Oh hang on, that first bit was irony as then you talk about two of the causes, as agreed by pretty much every scientist outside of the US Goverment, of global warming. Ozone depletion and the destruction of the earth's lungs.

Re:certainty

[troc]

I'll go with that one. Hopefully the new hybrid cars will help there. Even in the 'states, hybrids should do well - you guys can still buy an SUV with all the power and erm, SUVness that you think you require (or have been conned into requiring through advertising and peer pressure like all those dammed women in the UK with huge 4x4 and one kid to drive the 100m to school) but with double the fuel efficiency.

It looks like the first models will be out next year. The general idea is either to have electric motors to all wheels and an IC engine to "top up" the electrics when necessary or (and this seems the most sensible and common idea) to have electrics driving 2 of the wheels and an IC for the others. This allows for lots of clever 4 wheel drive stuff, on braking you get energy back into the car etc etc

troc

Re:Just another point on the curve?

[MickLinux]

Norway and Sweden, if I understand correctly, already are good farmland. You just have to know how to farm it. Slightly to the south are Latvia and Lithuania, and the gardens there are incredible.

First of all, they build shiltunamai (warm houses they say, we say green houses) for their start seeds and for their tomatos. The tomato plants grow 6-8 feet high, so the green houses are good for that. Then, they alternate potatos with grain. Grain is for the cattle; potatos are for the humans; the alternation helps refresh the land, as *did* the spring flooding of the rivers. [That's less often nowadays, though].

In the spring they harvest strawberries.

Then, they run beets, onions, carrots, Swiss Chard, Currants, bilberries, and raspberries, through the year. Sunflowers, apples, plums, and grapes are common autumn foods. Flowers of all kinds are grown in quantity as well.

From the forests, they harvest mushrooms.

Each garden also has a bee hive to help fertilize things.

Unfortunately, the area is being deforested now, which means that less rain falls, and the fields don't flood. But I can say that the Baltic region is definitely good farmland already.

No truth in it.

[Shivetya]

We still don't know all of the sources of CO2 on this planet. Everything these scientists believe they have all climate affecting variables nailed down another pops up.

Just recently they found that the AMAZON RIVER dumps more CO2 into the air than all the surrounding region. Go figure.

In our egotistical view we give ourselves too much credit over the influence of the weather. Sorry, but we ain't that "good" yet.

Re:certainty

[troc]

True, I guess I was being a little sexist but usually it's the mothers that have the inappropriate 4x4 and the fathers that have the inappropriate company car or BMW 3 series (at least in Surrey it appears that every house comes with one 4x4 and one 3 series, you just choose the colours to match your front door :)

It's partly peer pressure (ooh, next door have a RAV 4, we NEED a Freelander, the high seats make me feel safer) and partly crap public transport I guess.

I live in holland now and since we arrived, we got rid of one car and the other one is only used for long trips and stuff. The public transport gets us most places quickly (but not as well as it used to) and I can cycle/rollerblade/walk/tram/train/bus/canoe (or drive I guess) to work depending on the weather and how long it takes me to get up. Fastest is bike and slowest is walking.

Troc

Ps No I have not actually canoed to work but I could do. I have ice-skated to work.

Story on BBC News with map

[cjellibebi]

Arctic ice shelf splits

Not warming, ice age.

[SmurfButcher Bob]

The operative word in that story was "salinity".

Warm salt water floats. Cold salt water sinks. BUT... cold fresh water floats on warm salt water. And when it does, it displaces the warm salt water towards the south. And that, of course, pushes the "great conveyor" to the south.

What's that mean? Well, for an ice-age to happen in the past, it means there had to be one heck of a lot of fresh water disrupting the conveyor up north.

So, to the experts who scream, "See? Warming!" I might suggest that you consider that the fresh water doesn't just *go away* when it has melted. It has a definite impact, and it doesn't make things warmer, either.

Next time, learn a little before you open your mouth.

Correlation != Causation

[goldspider]

"The fact that temperature changes coincide with increasing levels of a known greenhouse forcing gas, is actually fairly pursuasive. Or did you mean 'mere coincidence.' ;)"

Anybody who deals in logic and facts will tell you that CORRELATION != CAUSATION! I'm surprise you've never heard that before.

Just remember, 30 years ago, some of these same crackpot hippy 'scientists' were predicting an impending ICE AGE! So which is it? Depends on what gets them more government funding, I suppose.

Re:This is serious stuff folks ...

[argStyopa]

This is not a good development for the ecosystem of our planet.

Well, no. This may not be a good development for the HUMAN inhabitants of the planet, but the ecosystem will chug merrily along without noticing at all if the humans are all gone.

Is it not a fact that at least until the end of the 'dinosaur era' the planet's temperature was SIGNIFICANTLY warmer than it is now? So how is a increase or decrease in global temperature of tiny amounts going to affect the planet? The answer is, of course, it WON'T. It may affect humans. In fact, we may be losers in the next great die-off. So sad, too bad. THAT is the nature of fauna on this planet.

We could pave the Earth, light up two or threee thousand nuclear warheads, all drive SUV's until the oil is gone, even smoke unfiltered cigarettes and kill ourselves off and you know what? In about a million years, the Earth will look much like it did about a million years ago.

For every organism that I know of, as soon as it can outcompete other creatures in its niche, it will overpopulate until the population collapses. That's what humanity is doing now. Big deal, so we're acting like lemmings with thumbs, why is this SUCH a surprise? This is far more the 'natural cycle' of things than some silly effort by environmentalists to "stop time" so Earth remains forever a place perfectly-suited for OUR existence.

Ironically, environmentalists are simply species-centric humanists of the worst order.

Re:certainty

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not reasonable to spend billions of dollars to "take action" on this (or any other theory) without significant scientific evidence...

Three words: War In Iraq