Slashdot Mirror
Giant Iceberg to Collide with Glacier
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."
Cold Fusion?
Welcome to Iceburg, Drygalski. Population 0.
Roland Emmerich is going to make another movie....
God DAMN IT.
That's the day after tommorow...well it almost is.
What's an iceburg?
------- I fumbled my registration and I now must suffer
Its one thing to be scared its another to do something about it.
a city in greenland?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Things like this dont happen too often. Surely someone can sacrifice a few bucks to set up a camera in the front row. Maybe it could be some inspiration for those CGI effects in Hollywood.
tsumanis, icebergs, mudslides, giant asteroids on a collision course with earth, windows exploits. armegeddon?
Of course it's cool. If it weren't, it would be just liquid water, or even steam.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
IcebUrgs?
So Slashdot has evolved beyond mere typos on the editor's comments and now sports typos on the headlines...
I've always found interesting that, in English, two words that are spelled differently can be pronounced the same.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
Yep. Cloning sheep. After all. the whole point of sheep is that they're all supposed to be the same...
:-D
well when all the penguins down there cluster themselves into a giant beowulf penguin named guido to push the giant iceburg away from the family home of dave the tv repair penguin, then maybe you'll see the significance.
Why is it that any environmental event worse than a mild hailstorm is now attributed to a global climate catastrophe bought on by humanity?
Where's Bruce Willis and a nuke when you need them? The poor penguins must be saved from the iceberg!
"We need to get over this notion, that, for Apple to win... Microsoft must lose." - Steve Jobs, 1997
Yup and after the collision we'll all freeze to death in a matter of seconds...
Why the hell mention that stupid movie. Come on, while there is evidence that global warming is indeed melting icecaps and sometimes thus causing areas to cool down rather than warm up, an iceberg crashing into a glacier is hardly a sign that some hollywood blockbuster is about to become true.
East Coast Brewers
Less consequence? Can you say tsunami?
If you live in southern Chile, or anywhere else that's close to Antartica, head for the hills!
Think of all that poor lettuce!
You know, you'd think that Slashdotters would be more interested in seeing one gigantic thing ramming into another gigantic thing.
Oh, wait, there won't be any fire and explosions. Never mind.
Is there an analogy between this and meteors? We keep not seeing little ones until they're on us or even past us - is it the same with icebergs?
If a big section of ice were to break up, would it affect sealevel in a significant way? Even if we know these bergs won't, how much warning will we get before a a big one happens?
In Green mars a large portion of antarctica breaks up, raising Earth's sealevel by around 8 metres. Though it's not due to happen 'til 2127.
That tip will fall into the ocean. And you'd be surprised what a relatively "small" piece of rock (or in this case: ice) can do when it splashes into a huge water mass.
The asteroid which caused the "dinosaur extinction" 65 million years ago was only 10 km (6 miles) wide.
Fall into the ocean? i thought something like 80% of an iceberg is underwater already.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
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.
2 47 96.100
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=mg184
Is there anything that could possibly have less consequence?
;)
If there is, I'm sure Slashdot will find that too.
Iceberg dead ahead!!
This is the sig that says NI (again)
And if the falling piece comes off the glacier (which rests on land, at least in part), there will be a net increase in volume.
Because it's not every day you get to see a 100 mile long Tonka truck go boom... unlike a squirrel that hides nuts, four gallons of rainwater flowing past a bunch of rocks, or an elephant taking a giant poop (unless its load is the size of Montana).
Quick! Contact Bruce Willis!
I wear pants.
You're thinking of something like this.
Fresh water entering the antarctic isn't a problem, but in the arctic it could switch off the gulf stream and mess up the weather all over the atlantic.
You don't even need a subscription to tell what's coming up on Slashdot. Just check out the Evening Tech Bits section of news updates on Blue's News. Half of the items end up on Slashdot in one or two days.
In all fairness, Blue takes many articles from Slashdot as well.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
(been a long time since i did some math)
From the site:-
"The B-15A iceberg is a 3,000-square-kilometer (1,200-square-mile) behemoth"
Pulling figures from the nether region, i'm assuming the berg to be 100mts high. This would give us:-
Surface area = 3000 sq. km = 3000 x 1000 x 1000 = 3 x 10^9 sq. mt.
Thus, volume of berg = 3 x 10^9 x 100 = 3 x 10^11 cubic mts.
Now, i know that roughly, 1 cubic meter of ice (water) = 1000kg.
Thus, weight of berg = 3 x 10^11 x 1000 = 3 x 10^14 kgs.
That's 3000000,000,00,000kgs. = 3000000,000,00 metric tons = 300000000 kilotons = 300000 million tons!
If my math is correct, then oooh boy, this is going to be one heck of a fender bender.
Don't underestimate the possible consequences of rainwater seeping into mud. Read here about what may happen!
Elephant takes giant poop
Hey, if he happens to be on a Chicago bridge when he does, he may cause some stir!
http://www.nasa.gov.nyud.net:8090/vision/earth/loo kingatearth/ice_berg_ram.html
Are you going to honestly tell me that you care about an iceberg hitting a glacier in Antarctica? More to the point, that it deserves to get its own article on /.?
/. articles? I guess I disagree.
Conversely, do you also believe that if there were giant elephants taking massive poops (Long Island is far smaller than Montana, btw) that their excremental misadventures should get their own
Not much, if you live in Montana.
But if you live in Texas, or Louisiana, or Florida, it's got quite a lot of consequence. Ice melts on its exposed edges. So break it up into smaller pieces and it melts faster, decreasing the salinity of the ocean, and thus affecting circulation, which leads to changes in storm patterns. Had any hurricanes lately?
Melting of floating ice, of course, doesn't change the sea level. But the floating glacier provides back-pressure which holds back the much larger glacier on shore. If you break off the floating part of the glacier and release the back-pressure, more of the non-floating part slides down into the sea and starts to float, and that does change the sea level. How high do you want your tide today?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Is there an analogy between this and meteors? We keep not seeing little ones until they're on us or even past us - is it the same with icebergs?
:), although there hasn't been such a big iceberg from Antarctica for quite a while (Refering to Iceberg B-15 / B-15A, which has been around since March 2000, causing starvation of ALL penguin chicks due to inability of their parents to get food because of much greater quantities of sea ice in McMurdo Sound).
Probably
If a big section of ice were to break up, would it affect sealevel in a significant way? Even if we know these bergs won't, how much warning will we get before a a big one happens?
Its not the fact that the sea ice breaks up, its the fact that the sea ice is holding back billions of tonnes of ice that is currently on Antartica, which would raise sea levels, and sea levels only have to rise by a small amount 30 to 40 cm / 1 foot for catastrophy to occur. huge areas of the world will become submerged, many millions (possibly billions) of people will be displaced.
In Green mars a large portion of antarctica breaks up, raising Earth's sealevel by around 8 metres. Though it's not due to happen 'til 2127.
Whilst Green Mars is fiction, the rise in sea levels caused when Antartica does melt aren't, and at the rate we're going, the melting of the Antartic ice will be inevitable in less than 10 years time, due to positive reinforcement from the amount of CO2 that humans are pumping into the environment (SUV's, Air planes, Coal / Gas fired powerstations etc...).
I need a new sig...
Ice is less dense than water, thus about the top 10% or so is above the surface- in theory it would increase the level of the ocean.
Of course the actual water volume of even the largest icebergs would be a piss in the ocean in the grand scheme of things. My guess is more water would evaporate from the oceans surface in a day.
Really, if it was big as Montana, it deserves a mention.
Short of that, you're right, no-one really cares.
Your depleted uranium petition? :-)
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
You know, you'd think that Slashdotters would be more interested in seeing one gigantic thing ramming into another gigantic thing.
For a moment I thaught you were referring to porn. But then you mentioned the fire and explosions...
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=67&q=iceb urg
Nothing costs nothing
Quick! Gather up your children and amble away as though your life depends on it.
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
It was in a movie written by Art Bell, it's gotta be true.
OT but... I used to love his show when they'd have the "Time Traveler Hotline" open. Always reminded me of Peabody & his boy Sherman.
--
The Marines: The few, the proud, the not very bright. - Slashdot tagline 04/21/05
Try this at home: float an icecube in a glass of water. Watch it melt. See the water level stay the same.
Everytime I try this experiment I get thirsty and wind up drinking some of the nice cold water.
I'll just have to take your word for it.
I don't know. I am suprised though that not a single nutter has connected the tsunami disaster with it, yet.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
This must be the most boring bit of news I ever read in my life. Do I miss some extention in the geek gene that would make this appear to be spectacular to me?
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
How high do you want your tide today
Well, my current elevation is 100-1000 meters, so bring on the high tides.
However, in the recent poll, 45% of respondents were less than 100m, so they might complain.
appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars
Global warming is a fact, whether you like it or not. Some still argue as to what caused it (humans or it's a natural phenomenon) but, in my opnion, it does not matter. We all will have to deal with the effects and theres no reason to deny it.
For the best experience, I recommend viewing it with the Jaws theme song.
Now all I need is a martini the size of Poland.
...has a woman driver?
...penguin refugees flee to Chile.
Mother nature never ceases to amaze us !
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
I have doubts anything spectacular would be seen on shore. Most likely, the bottom of the iceburg, which we are always told is 90% of the volume, would strike the bottom before reaching close to shore. It is probably dragging on the bottom right now.
Not much of a story. Yawn.
I'm not denying it. Read what I said!
I just can't help but feel that constantly bringing up the day after tomorrow every time an iceberg is mentioned doesn't help make people take this seriously. The movie was after all, a movie made for entertainment. It was over the top, excessive, and oh so very hollywood.
East Coast Brewers
How tall did you say you were?
There's probably a penguin on the iceberg pumping its foot and yelling "Waaaa! No brakes, no brakes!"
Simon says: "Ice melts on its exposed edges. So break it up into smaller pieces and it melts faster" - RIGHT - so why are we allowing ice breakers in the Arctic? Won't that help it break up and melt much faster?
So the legendary capital of the Iceland, the nest of the Elves has eventually resurfaced?!!
Now, mod me down freely. My karma can't get any worse...
I'm not sure just how fresh the water in Icebergs is but increased amounts of fresh water in the Ocean can cause problems.
I remember watching a program a while back which said that due to global warming huge russian rivers were dumping much more than the usual amount of fresh water in the North Atlantic.
The North Atlantic contains one end of the Gulf Stream where the warm water sinks down and flows back to the Gulf Of Mexico to be reheated. Apparently if the salinity of the water reduces by any more the warm water might not sink down and in effect turn off the Gulf Stream at which point we in the UK would be pretty f#cked.
How many other scientist agree with this idea though I am not sure.
When will NASA admit to the public that their advanced, super-sophisticated, collision-detection-system (that's been working so well for them in recent months)has been foiled again by a NASA employee eating chips carelessly over their satellite maps?
=Cheers! Chris McAllister
Mind you, if a large block slips out quickly, it has the potential to release a sizeable wave.
You are winningly confident in your abilities as an armchair climatologist, not to mention your political science skills are totally unmatched on this planet. Your mother must be so proud she's fit to burst with joy. I would like to subscribe to your informative newsletter.
You're right. You're the sharpest knife in the drawer. You've got it together so well you're a seven-can six-pack. The Kyoto protocol is a bunch of pinko commie leftist partisan hogwash expressly designed to get you into an itchy, brown wool commie skirt and red lip gloss just in time for the community sing of "All Hail Dear Leader", and has nothing to do with a consortium of scientists from all over the globe and countries that span the entire political spectrum.
You're certainly astute, and not glib. Your comments are totally focused and concise, and not sweeping, reactionary generalizations. Every single climate scientist and adherent to the Kyoto protocol is leftist scum. Because there's only right, and wrong, right?
Did you know that there has been a descriptive phrase invented on the internet just for you?
Unrelenting fucktard.
May you, your shithole of a trailer and your even more ignorant cousin/sisterwife get sucked into an F5 tornado, along with that walking mange of a coondog and that pile of wrecked steel and cinderblocks you call a driveway, you nunshitting popefelcher.
Please stop logging in here, lackwit. The chiggers that fall out of your mullet are absolutely disgusting. Your dog smells. You smell worse than a tour-ripe hippy rolling - stoned - in a steamy March meadow full of fresh cowpies. You have no idea how much we've been spending on deadly toxic fumigants to delouse the place after you finally leave.
I think there is a 300KM long Iceberg blocking the Ross Sea which is causing the Sea Ice formed in the sound during the winter not to melt or drift back out too sea. I am guessing any bases on McMurdo sound rely on the sea being ice free in summer for resupply which this summer it's not.
"The Day After Tommorow" was a movie where I enjoyed the ability to fast forward through the dialoge.
Disaster films are fun, but they have to stretch them out with dumb actors yapping. How much dialoge are they going to cram into the disaster movie about the Tsunami
Don't say they won't make that movie, thousands script writers are probably working on it write now, pitching it as featuring DiCaprio and J-Lo, with a love scene featuring a crashing wave montage.
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
Ok everybody. Imagine in your heads two pieces of ice hitting each other. Now imagine this isn't happening for 4 days. Is it something you're looking forward to yet?
This is old news, this is the plot from "The Day After Tomorrow".
Actually, someone has already tried to connect the tsunami with global warming. Not sure how, but they claimed that the tsunami was caused by it. I'm still skeptical about global warming seeing as how antartica is getting colder and the ice there is growing, among other things.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Giant Icebug to Collide with Slashdot. Orthographical pieces probably will fall in the comment ocean, causing changes in its pH, leaving users with a cold feeling the day after tomorrow.
The Ghost of Long Island has possessed a large iceberg in Antarctica, which is now running amok. Bloody crazy environmentalists.
Who are these "Brittish" of which you speak?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Is there any chance of a big wave resulting from this ?
I seem to remember seeing a documentary where a 'small' piece of an iceberg resulted in a huge wave about a mile further down near the shore....
"Tell me something I don't know! Get out of the way!"
k = m * v^2
So size (et mass) DOES matter.
I don't have a sig.
There's this bar - and there's a Chinese guy and a Jewish guy who find themselves seated next to each other a couple of nights. Things are going pretty good until one night after a few too many, the Jewish guy hauls off and decks the Chinese guy.
The Chinese guy picks himself up and says "What the hell was that for?!"
The Jewish guy snaps "That was for bombing Pearl Harbor."
"Pearl Harbor? Pearl harbor was bombed by the Japanese!"
The Jewish guy shrugs "Chinese, Japanese, what's the difference?!"
The next night they find themselves at the bar again, and after a snootful, the Chinese guy hauls off and decks the Jewish guy.
He picks himself up and shouts "What the hell was THAT for?"
The Chinese guy says "THAT was for sinking the Titanic!"
"Are you nuts? The Titanic was sunk by an iceberg?!"
"Yeah, well - iceberg, Goldberg - what's the difference?!"
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Krusty: "What is the freaking holdup?"
--RJ
I've seen this stated in exactly one TV documentary. A documentary, which claimed that each and every other study on global warming is based on false data. Has this new study been peer-reviewed? Does anyone have any more info?
while true;do echo -e -n "\033[s\n\033[u\134_\033[B";done
How long before those urban survivalist fantasists start believing that a hummer has lost it as the ultimate in urban cool, and start looking for a nuclear powered icebreaker to keep on their moorings. Tsunami proof, oil shortage proof, sea level rise and wandering berg proof,probably a good place to be when an asteroid strikes, and almost as economical as the average SUV. I guess the Russians have a few to sell to raise some foreign currency.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
They are more welcome in Peru
...$20 on the glacier. I think it can take that little guy.
FLR
I can't remember the last time that /. informed its readers of something _ahead_ of time that isn't measured in decades.
Laws are for people with no friends.
best.
:)
flame.
ever.
thankyou AC for making me laugh out loud - 'nunshitting popefelcher'
now thats a keeper
Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
Leela: No he didn't.
The sheep don't think all sheep all look alike. Else where did they come from to begin with?
According to NASA, "a collision between the iceberg and the ice tongue could make things easier for both penguins and ships. If the ice tongue collapses, the way may be opened for sea ice to escape the Sound." Well thank God. Those poor, strange, waddling creatures will do ok in the long run.
Me, I can't usually eat 'em 'cause my girlfriend's a vegetarian. Which more or less makes me a vegetarian, but I sure love the taste of a good burger.
You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in France?
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
The B-15A iceberg is a 3,000-square-kilometer (1,200-square-mile) behemoth that has a history of causing problems. It is the largest fragment of a much larger iceberg that broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000. Scientists believe that the enormous piece of ice broke away as part of a long-term natural cycle (every 50-to-100 years, or so) in which the shelf, which is roughly the size of Texas, sheds pieces much as human fingernails grow and break off.> :P
Part of the natural cycle for this. Yes, things are melting. Yes, things are breaking off. But not all that melts or breaks off is a sign of the end of the world. See, what happens is that ice expands, and...well, if you can't read an article, then I doubt you'd understand.
Did anyone notice Jerry Bruckheimer in the area with a pick axe?
Josh
"It doesn't affect me so bring on the tides."
That's a pretty brave position, tough guy. Try saying it when your elevation is sea level and within five miles of the ocean.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Cheese Royal. It's the metric system, dude.
Check out the big brain on liangzai!
Read Michael Chritons "State of Fear". yes, I know it is a novel and all about chriton not being a scientist, but he has an extensive bibliography in the book that points out what the scientists themselves have said and links to the raw data on temperature measurements going back to 1829.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
There's a large section to the upper left of the Long Island shaped piece that breaks away from the main section and appears to have rejoined the main section in a later image. Isn't it possible that the large piece will do this as well?
free online diet tracking.
It hasn't happened yet so it's hardly old news, it seems to me it is a theory which deserves a lot more investigation.
Don't fear the penguins.. Let them have an easier path to feed.
Its all about the penguins. Thats why the story is hear(sic)..(and not about the spelling)
I like the debate your typo generated, I never got -1 offtopic/+1 underrated before :-)
(I like the iceberg collision too, by the way)
My last option:
I) Nothing, unless CowboyNeal falls into water, then 'F'
allmybasearebelong2u
Somewhere in Antarctica:
Oh, sure, NASA says it's on a collision course, they say it's going to hit no later than Jan 15th... but the odds will keep going up, and up (1:1, 1:1 confirmed by a lot of people, 1:1 confirmed by tons of penguins looking at it...) , and then poof... 1 in a billion.
I'm not falling for that one again!
The last Slashdot post by McFrostyGuy1131.
unless i'm off my rocker and forgot sciance class, wouldn't that reduce the water level, as ice has a higher volume than liqid water?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Actually, IIRC, scientists have already measured a drop in both the salinity of the atlantic ocean, and a drop in the volume of water moving in the gulf stream. Where people disagree is the effect that this would have on the climate. Most scientists seem to think that the temperature drops will be counteracted by increases in temperature due to global warming, leading to worse winters in the UK and northern europe but leaving them inhabitable. Some scientists are worried that the gulf stream might change direction towards the ice caps so increasing the rate of ice melting. Others are worried that if the gulf stream stops, it would reduce the temperature in northern europe enough to cause a new ice age, something that would have major effects on a global scale. No one actually knows. http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/science_natu re/the_day_after_tomorrow.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/impact/gulf_stream.sh tml
"As a writer / novelist you might want to spellcheck your sig.
An honest question- how is this related to aeronautics or space?
Hmmm... wouldn't this be a direct indication that NASA has been looking in the wrong direction?
What we really need is a ten day waiting period and a background check before you can buy a congressman.
Peanuts, Monkeys ?
I can already hear the Celine Dion playing in my head.
I believe there is a company in Canada that takes icebergs and melts them down for their "pure" water to make vodka. Iceberg Vodka info
Perhaps we should send them down to pick up this iceberg and prevent the collision.
Imagine the carnage we could have prevented!
Or, in the other case, how many penguins we can save.
Live forever, or die trying.
Even if such things are NOT the result of human intervention (which is doubtful); we still need to be prepared to deal with them.
The Earth is getting warmer, the effects that this may or may not have on the climate, ocean currents, and many other things could dramatically impact life.
Would you also tell us that if a large asteroid is coming towards us, well it's happened before, just let it happen again?
What?
"Speed 3: Ice berg of doom"
"Oh my god, if this ice berg goes slower than 1 mile a year we're ALL GONNA DIE!!!"
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
There will be no collision. It was proved with scientific fact in the movie "A Christmas Story." When a cold object comes in contact with a tongue, the end result is a call to the fire department.
Saaaaaaaay. That would make a GREAT movie....
Er....
Proverbs 21:19
Let's just hope Mahdi comes at the same time. All the nutters gone in one fell swoop!
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
The critical temperature of sulfur is 1041 C, which is the highest temperature sulfur could be in a truly liquid state.
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
This icebUrg is obviously funded by Microsoft in an attempt to eliminate the Linux Penguin. Shameful..
_______
Huh?
Speed 3: Glacier of Doom!
If this iceburg moves any faster than 2 miles a year we're all DOOMED!
I know more than you drink.
Never was one for SUV's. To much 'look at my overcompensation for having a small dick'. And then there's the gas prices in California (where I currently reside). I don't like the thought of giving some Saudi Arabian 2.50 per gallan of my money. You do the math on a full tank of gas. Fuck that.
By you do deserve a mod or 5 for funny. That shit made me crack up.
Mod this down! Slashdot is not the place to be talking about penguins... wait, nevermind.
I'm going to go create my own technology news site, with blackjack and hookers. You know what? Forget the news site.
Regarding extensive bibliographies, it's an old junk science propaganda trick, used by slimy characters on the fringes of any serious issue. Just because someone has a lot of references doesn't mean the references say what they claim.
Regarding Chrichton, he twists science around for his living, which is fearmongering for entertainment. His accusations might be just based on projection of his own behavior rather than any deep understanding of science.
mt
Using the revised estimate of 1750000million tonnes, and guessing a nice slow drift rate of 0.1ms^-1, how much kinetic energy is involved?
= 0.5 * 1.75*10^15 * (0.1)^2
= 17.5TJ (!)
That's a metric shedload, but it will be released over a few days. Once the thing comes to rest I think we can reasonably expect a new range of ice hills, rather than a billion par-boiled penguins.
Geez, here you've got a gigantic source of relatively clean water, so get a fleet of tugboats and drag it where it'll do some good. First spray it with a reflective overcoating to slow melting, then tow it to the Middle East or Africa. You can put it in a holding pen and slice off huge chunks with lasers. Instant irrigation!!
"I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer situations to plans..." --Wintermute, William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
Just high enough to wash away this mudslide, thanks!
Since we are headed for another ice age you could view greenhouse gas emmisions as a good thing and a long term pro-environment approach to preventing an expected natural distaster (that is, the next ice age)
Looked at that way do you really think we could prevent an ice age? About as likely as it would be for our emmisions to cause the polar ice caps to melt. Not very.
a giant aircraft carrier.
maybe theres something the government is telling us
"He's a real midnight golfer"
We're not headed for an ice age, we're still in the processes of emerging from the previous one, and have yet to officially not be in an ice age.
What?
Is it just me who was worried about the illustrations? Do Americans really need an illustration to know how big Antarctica is? Couldn't all those NASA scientists, you know, put a scale on the photo instead? Like a small black bar saying "I am 100 km long" or something? Come on, I already accepted people using Texas as a non-SI unit of choice for measuring asteroids, but can't we do better than that with iceberg images? At least on nasa.gov?
And don't get me started with the gratitious use of metaphors, hyperboles and paraboles, not to mention good old cliches. "Largest Demolition Derby", "best seat in the house", "clash of the titans" and "dent their bumpers" - what's up with that? Is NASA writing for rednecks now? Do they feel they have to compete with wrestling for audience?
I thought an interesting science story can be exciting by itself, without using craptastic language like "the enormous piece of ice broke away". In the previous sentence they used perfectly concise "the largest fragment of a much larger iceberg that broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000", wasn't that enough? Are they afraid that some hillbilly didn't get it the first time? If I can no longer go to nasa.gov for decent science coverage... well, I am out of words then.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I thought that a floating glacier makes it be an iceburg also!
GTI? Hmmm, linux version of GTA? Penguins included.
Yes, the center of Antarctica has gotten colder because of tightening circulation of the Antarctic polar vortex (wind patterns). This is mostly due to another man-made phenomena: the ozone hole. Without ozone you drive up the thermal boundary layer which leads to more intense circulation.
As far as I know this is only clearly significant for the interior of Antartica. I'm not sure what is happening on average around the edges of Antartica, but I know in at least some areas (e.g. Ross Ice Shelf) they see clear warming and diminishing ice.
the face on the picture flip through? It is on day 12/23. Freaky.
...
The 0.113398 Kiloburger?
I don't know how someone would go about measuring the back-pressure, but it has been experimentally determined that when the floating ice is knocked off, the speed with which the glacier on land moves increases. The extent to which this was true did surprise some people.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
When you give up your car, I could use it.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
It's a distraction. They're trying to draw our attention away--this is planned for the same time as the next probe slamming into Mars . . .
hawk
This is the black magic done by the Illuminati to let you know what they're planning and you can't do a damn thing.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
...so? Every now and then, these story synopses here on /. don't really make the point of why we should care. This is one of those.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Because Glaciers are formed in mountainous areas principally from snowfall they are pretty much 100% freshwater
And, yes, the glaciers are moving faster. And, yes, this could - eventually - effect water levels. And, no, there is no possible way that this would happen within 10 years time. There is a mere outside chance that it may happen over the next 200 (two hundred) years.
What we don't know is how much we can effect this change - in either direction.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Uh, the glaciers on Antarctica are continuously moving, and rebuilding. Snow falls year after year, after year, and the glaciers keep moving, and rebuilding.
They are continuously moving, but the sea ice shelf is holding back the glaciers from moving a lot faster, which has allowed so much ice to form on Antarctica. If the sea ice melts, all the glaciers would be able to "dump" their ice (which is currently over land) into the oceans, which would raise the water levels. It is not necesarrily the melting of the ice over Antarctica itself that will cause the sea levels to rise.
And, yes, the glaciers are moving faster. And, yes, this could - eventually - effect water levels. And, no, there is no possible way that this would happen within 10 years time. There is a mere outside chance that it may happen over the next 200 (two hundred) years.
Its not that it will occur in 10 years, but if we don't change the way that we currently use fossil fuels etc... it will be very hard to stop Antarctica melting within that 200 year timeframe, due to positive feedback in out atmosphere. (look to Venus for how positive feedback can occur, and how its atmosphere ended up as a 400 deg C maelstrom, as opposed to Earth, an essentially similar planet)
What we don't know is how much we can effect this change - in either direction.
What we do know is that CO2 levels are the highes they have been since known atmospheric history (420,000 years) and that CO2 levels have had a close correlation to temperature over that period. (Although we dont know that they are causally linked.)
Whilst we don't know how much we can affect this change, we do know that if we carry on as we are, things will certainly not get better, and warmer weather is not necessarily better, ~14,000 excess deaths occurred from heat related problems in France during Summer 2003, which is a lot more than the ~3,000 who died in 9/11. (Although 9/11 showed how bad the USA's homeland security was at the time - all the flights took off from US airports on internal flights.)
I need a new sig...
Hmmm... didn't read the "credible link" bit relating to the 10 years fact (oops...). The guy who said it was James Lovelock (the author of the GAIA hypotheses/theory) when asked about the likelihood / effects of global warming on this years (2004/5) Christmas Lectures on Channel4 in the UK. (another link).
He was referring to the "point of no return", after which there will be nothing we can do to stop global warming from melting the ice caps, not that Antarctica will melt in 10 years time. He was refering to the fact that the current CO2 levels in the Earth are around 370 ppm, and if it gets close to 400 ppm, then global warming will be unstopable. CO2 levels are currently rising at a rate of 2~3 ppm a year (which is where the 10 years fact comes from).
I need a new sig...
I would also point out that the "positive reinforcement" theory is also still actively disputed in scientific circles, in that the correlation exists, but the cyclic cause and effect hasn't been proven (though pointing to a planet that's much closer to the sun is good enough for some folk, I prefer more substance).
Overall, between 1979 and 1997, the mean temperature of the earth dropped slightly. Since 1997, the mean temperature of the earth has gained that back, and then some - all of this still looks like it could be a fairly natural process...
Certainly, the northern parts of Antarctica are, as you point out, a vital regional area to the overall health of the worlds low-coast regions - but a regional warming of parts of that continent (while other regions of the same continent are getting colder) over a relatively short period of time, does not necessarily indicate global warming influences.
The general belief of most environmental types is that, "if this _could_ be having a bad effect, then we should stop". I believe, "since this _could_ be having a bad effect, we should continue to actively study what is happening, until we know more."
(I don't believe you brought this one up, but it's related)... The Kyoto accord, that the US rejected, was unbalanced. It assumed every single country, as of 1996, had zero environmental controls. Then it said, you must improve your current emmissions by 'x' percent over the next 20 years. Well, if India puts cheap scrubbers on half of it's industries (something we already did to _all_ of our industries back in the 80s) they have fully complied with Kyoto, while we are forced to figure out how to produce even less emissions from our already scrubbed output. So - that said - I think it was smart of us to reject it. I'm happy that the rest of the world wants to clean up though.
That said, I am unhappy about the idea that several states, as varied as Florida and Minnesota, have chosen to stop their vehicle emmissions inspections. Great, our city air is a little cleaner than it was 20 years ago. Meanwhile, I know several people who have taken their older cars - that they "were going to get around to fixing" - back out of the garage, knowing that their cars are spewing horrible emmissions.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
I can understand your sentiment, I tried not to be misleading, but obviously failed :)
:)
Cheers for the clarification on other stuff
I need a new sig...
So what is the worse case scenario? I have yet to see or hear any informed speculation on that. Should we be rushing to install tsunami warning radar in that area in case large portions calve off into the ocean, or are we just looking toward a slight rise in ocean levels due to melting over a period of time? It seems that not even the experts are sure. The following is an NPR interview with Thomas Wagner, geophysics program manager for the U.S. Antarctic Program. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4285059&sourceCode=RSS