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Giant Iceberg to Collide with Glacier

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the snow-plowing dept.

OECD writes "NASA reports that a massive 100-mile-long iceberg is on a collision course (movie) with a floating glacier near the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica. NASA scientists expect a collision to occur no later than January 15, 2005."

4 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. This is important because... by polysylabic+psudonym · · Score: 5, Informative

    Aside from looking cool and being important to penguins (the two things that the article seems to focus on) this can affect things that are actually important.

    The ice tongue that the iceberg is going to hit is the ocean end of a glacier. If that is knocked off by the collision that could be like pulling the cork from a bottle. It may cause the glacier to discharge into the more rapidly than it otherwise would, raising sea levels.

    http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg1842 47 96.100

    1. Re:This is important because... by morzel · · Score: 4, Informative
      How exactly would it raise sea levels if it's already floating on the water? Want to recant?
      I'll bite: because the glacier is sitting on land?

      Remember: the North Pole is all ice and no land, but the South Pole is a pretty big landmass with the ice on top of it.

      --
      Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
      [Zappa]
  2. In case of slashdotting, Mirror here by appleLaserWriter · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.nasa.gov.nyud.net:8090/vision/earth/loo kingatearth/ice_berg_ram.html

  3. Re:Ooooh 300 million tons by mjfrazer · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to this, b15 was 200 to 350 metres thick at calving time.
    It was estimated to be 70% of the annual 2500 giga-tonne ice output from the Ross shelf. That's 1750000 million tonnes!
    (note that a metric tonne is spelled differently than an imperial ton.)