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Giant Ice Shelf Snaps

Popo writes "Sattelite images have revealed that an ancient 66 square-kilometer ice shelf, the size of 11,000 football fields, has snapped off from an island in Canada's arctic. The Ayles Ice Shelf was one of 6 major shelves remaining in Canada's arctic and is estimated to be over 3000 years old. The collapse was so powerful that earthquake monitors 250 km away picked up tremors. Scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in 30 years and point their fingers at climate change as a major contributing factor."

31 of 529 comments (clear)

  1. How much is that in square furlongs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    11,000 football fields. Yeah, there's an easy-to-visualize image. What a helpful comparison.

    1. Re:How much is that in square furlongs? by DrSkwid · · Score: 5, Informative

      58 sq km

      So a bit bigger than Bermuda (zoom out) but a bit smaller than San Marino (zoom out)

      --
      There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
    2. Re:How much is that in square furlongs? by Ziest · · Score: 4, Informative

      66 square kilometers == 25.5 square mile

      About half the size of San Francisco

      --
      Another day closer to redwood heaven
  2. Ungrateful scientists by Elentari · · Score: 5, Funny

    It lasted a good deal longer than any shelf I've ever put up.

  3. Happy Feet... by Ice+Wewe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dang it! I thought we told those Penguins that they couldn't keep dancing like that!

    1. Re:Happy Feet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I also thought we told those penguins they don't live in the northern hemisphere!

  4. less ambiguous units please! by JeanBaptiste · · Score: 5, Funny

    the size of 11,000 football fields

    NFL? Canadian? European kickball?

    Besides, this is a nerds site. Don't make athletic references.

    Volkswagen Bugs or Libraries of Congress would be more appropriate.

  5. Well... by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in 30 years and point their fingers at climate change as a major contributing factor."

    So what was the cause 30 years ago?

    It's a fair question, yes? Like when I hear "such and such place recorded the highest temperature in 150 years this week!" I think "What caused the previous high 150 years agp?" My brain has a pesky habit of continually asking questions. All those X-Files episodes, I guess. Trust no one. Ideologues hate me.

    1. Re:Well... by FhnuZoag · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As for the 150 years thing, it's because they had no thermometers 150 years ago, so their records only go back 150 years.

      And in this case, the 30 years figure is because observations of this kind done with satellites has only been possible for 30 years, and any prior event would be impossible to measure.

    2. Re:Well... by rucs_hack · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm no environmental scientist, but surely there would need to be many such events measured before we could really start saying what caused it.

      Is this a natural cycle? How long has this particular event been brewing? Have there been any other factors involved that can be discovered? These questions need to be answered before causes can be decided.

      I am concerned about global warming, but I am also concerned about political motivations determining hypothesis, or special interest groups leaping on events and trumpeting them as being caused by their particular bugbear.

      Such things do not good science make, and we need good science to get to grips with the causes of these events, lest we wander too far from the truth of it.

    3. Re:Well... by Decaff · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So what was the cause 30 years ago?

      It's a fair question, yes? Like when I hear "such and such place recorded the highest temperature in 150 years this week!" I think "What caused the previous high 150 years agp?" My brain has a pesky habit of continually asking questions.


      The problem is, you need to ask the right questions - you are asking the wrong ones. What matters is not what caused an area of ice to break off 30 years ago. The correct question is: "How much faster is the ice breaking off now than then?" Just because it has taken 30 years for an area to exceed the previous record, does not mean that no ice has been breaking off since.... in fact, warming might might mean that smaller pieces break off more often, explaining the long time to break the record!

    4. Re:Well... by mgrassi99 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What struck me was that the article mentioned the ice formations being about 3000 years old. Leading me to believe that over 3000 years ago, it was warmer, and then it got colder. And now its getting warmer again. Sooooo....can we prove that it truly is global warming now, and not part of some other cyclical change?

    5. Re:Well... by naoursla · · Score: 4, Informative

      Go watch Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". He presents data gathered by scientists that use ice core samples to infer temperature and CO2 cycles over the last 650,000 years. The data as he presents it is pretty compelling. If you choose, you can then do more research on your own to determine the veracity of that data, but it will help answer many of the questions you pose.

  6. Why I should be a highly paid spin consultant. by brennanw · · Score: 4, Funny
    Scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in 30 years and point their fingers at climate change as a major contributing factor.


    The implication is that 30 years ago there was a larger event. So if a smaller sheet of ice broke off now than the one from 30 years back, doesn't that mean the problem is going away? :)
    --
    Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
  7. 11,000 football fields? by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 4, Funny

    How many hockey rinks is that?

  8. Geography lesson by mangu · · Score: 5, Funny
    that ice has been outside for a long time with penguins, polar bears and what nots crapping all over it


    I agree with you that the tequila is what makes a good Margarita, but you are wrong about your crap. Penguins do not frequent the same ice as polar bears. Repeat with me, polar bears are in the North, penguins are in the South. Not, they do not meet at the tropics.

  9. Re:Drinks all around! by butterwise · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, a real good margarita consists of good tequila, fresh lime juice and triple sec - not a mix.

    --
    If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
  10. TERRORORRISTSS by SydBarrett · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you look closely, you can see where explosives were planted near the base. There is no way the self could have collapsed on its own. And isn't it strange how no penguins came to work that day?

    Canada should totally start rebuilding that ice shelf just to show those terrorists that NOBODY messes with Canada, eh?

  11. Re:11,000 Football field by ROBOKATZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Rhode Island is 1214 square miles or 33844377600 square feet.
    A football field is 58000 square feet x 11000 = 638000000 square feet for the iceberg.
    Rhode Island is about 584524 football fields.

    So the iceberg is about 1/53rd of the size of Rhode Island.

  12. Re:Because we all know by Ambitwistor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    that in 20-30 years ice this thick must have melted (as a result of global warming)... Puhlease.... It takes more than 20 years for ice this thick to melt to a shelving point... As another poster pointed out, global warming has been going on for longer than 20-30 years, it's closer to 100. And as another article on this event noted, the Canadian ice shelves have decreased in size by 90% over the last century.
  13. Re:Non Global-Warming Activity by Alchemar · · Score: 4, Informative

    The increase in radiation is caused by the hole in the ozone layer, but I think everything else is pretty much due to global warming.

  14. Re:I can't wait..... by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's common for the Extreme Right, and their fellow travelers in the Media, to invent disasters from selected data so they can save us all by the application of Fascism, at the expense of our personal liberties, of course.

    Extremists are extremists.. plain and simple.
    The only difference is which liberties they want you to surrender & why.

    To be fair, sometimes they ask you to do it for the common good
    and not because of some boogeyman.

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  15. 3000 years old... by LiTa03 · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...and is estimated to be over 3000 years old
    Almost as old as earth itself...
  16. Been There Done That by sycodon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maybe he should have worked there longer. Follow this link.

    http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic39-1-15. pdf

    In 1984 this study was done in Canada. The first page kind of says it all.

    " Between 1959 and 1974 a total of 48sqkm calved off from Milne and Ayles ice shelves. In addition, the Ayles Ice Shelf moved about 5km out into Ayles Ford"

    Not quite 66 sqkm but close. And it sounds as if the shelf broke off rather recently within a few decades, and somehow reattached itself. No mention of that in the story, but there is a significant emphasis that the ice is 3000 years old and ancient. Making it seem as if this has been the same for 3000 years. Next at the bottom left of the first page.

    "The largest observed ice calving occurred at Ward Hunt Ice Shelf (just north of Ayles) where almost 600SQKM, broke off between 1961 and 1962.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  17. Re:I can't wait..... by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Prior to "Global Warming" and its bogus Hockey Stick "study" it was Glaciation and/or Nuclear Winter
    Why do you declare it to be bogus? You see, in the 20th century science has grown up. The study of science became scientific too, theories have been developed as to how to do good science, Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, Lakatos, etc. told us what is science and how it works. It is a powerful mechanism, not comparable to the middle ages where dissenting opinion was supressed, and science only existed as an underground entity next to religion.

    I would have to mention that realclimate "debunked" the global cooling myth. It was never considered as a mainstream scientific belief, it only existed because of the popular press. The press gets most things wrong, can't distinguish between global dimming and global cooling. As for Nuclear Winter - thats the least of our worries if that many nukes were to be detonated in order to either cause an effect or not cause like that. It is a doomsday scenario, quite unlike global warming.

    It's common for the Extreme Left, and their fellow travelers in the Media, to invent disasters from selected data so they can save us all by the application of Socialism, at the expense of our personal liberties, of course.
    I have for a long time realised that categorizations like left or right don't make sense in the case of 80% of the population, especially across countries. Some of my ideas for an optimal society have socialist touches, but I also believe that personal liberties are not contradictory with them, quite the opposite. Even though the classification is quite flawed, I have to add that most of the civilized world is "extreme left" compared to the USA. Facts have a liberal bias and all that.

    Anyway, back to the topic. Global warming is not the popular opinion. Or if it is, it is irrelevant. It is the peer reviewed mainstream scientific consensus. Science is powerful, and self checking. Many scientists have tried to falsify the conclusion that global warming is happening, but didn't manage to, thus we accept it as our standing theory in relation to the projected temperature change of the planet. That's how science works, by testable theories.
    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
  18. Re:I can't wait..... by ROMRIX · · Score: 4, Informative
    .... for the anti global warming types to downplay that CLEARLY OBVIOUS FACT that global warming is the cause.

    That is not the point, global warming is a fact, global warming is the cause of melting ice, global warming is the cause of warmer oceans. That is not what is being contested.
    What is being contested is the cause of global warming. There are two podiums here, one is for arguing the cause is man made, the other is for arguing that it is a naturally recurring event.
    The first has little evidence to support it other than (slightly) higher co2 levels in the atmosphere. The second of which has strong evidence recorded in, what else but the ice itself as well as in fossil records.
    You cannot argue that there have been global warming events in the past but you can argue that man couldn't have been the cause then.
    So I guess we are in agreement? Global warming is a CLEARLY OBVIOUS FACT.

  19. A 728,000 inch monitor by Shihar · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let me put that football measurement into something a slashdotter can relate to. It had the area of screen on a 728,000 inch monitor.

  20. Re:How much evidence do we need? by Aardpig · · Score: 4, Informative

    How many vast Ice sheets have cracked recently?

    I believe that the Larson A and B ice sheets, in Antarctica, broke up within the past decade.

    --
    Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
  21. Where was that? by Holistic+Missile · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ..about 800 kilometres south of the North Pole.

    At the north pole, isn't every direction south?
    --
    When you're dead, you don't know you're dead. It only affects the people around you. Same thing when you're stupid.
  22. Re:Huh? by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 4, Informative
    We had global warming 30 years ago? I thought we were all supposed to fear global cooling back then.
    Go thank the press for that. Scientists didn't say that there is global cooling, the press conjured the "theory" up.
    What is the frequency of such events?
    Note, this is scientists speaking. When they say "this is the largest event of its kind in 30 years", it is NOT equivalent with saying "last time an event like this happened was 30 years ago". They are only saying, that from the events in the last 30 years, this is the largest so far. They don't say anything about what happened 32, 35 or 3500 years ago, because they might not have the data to confirm that such event like this DIDN'T happen. It is entirely possible that such event didn't happen in the last 2000 years, but then you have to verify or falsify this assumption with evidence.
    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
  23. Re:Critical thinking = idiocy? by andm461c · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think you are being unfair.

    If someone tells you: "We haven't got a better football player for 20 years!", you think: "Mkay, so there *was* a better one before that!", no?
    If there were no one better, the time mentioned would be longer.
    It's only logical.

    If you do not know when thermometers were invented, and do not know when satellites were invented... For what reason would you think in another way?
    It's an incorrect way to write a statement in the first place - because it is misleading.
    A more correct way to express this would be: "We have the highest temperature yet measured." or "It is the biggest chunk of ice broken loose we have observed with our satellites."

    Yes, I am aware that the satellite part says "largest event in 30 years", the above is just an example.
    I think that can be forgiven though - don't you?