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Antarctic Ice Bridge Finally Breaks Off
GreennMann writes "An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice the size of Jamaica to two islands in Antarctica has snapped. Scientists say the collapse could mean the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the brink of breaking away, and provides further evidence of rapid change in the region. Sited on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins shelf has been retreating since the 1990s. Researchers regarded the ice bridge as an important barrier, holding the remnant shelf structure in place. Its removal will allow ice to move more freely between Charcot and Latady islands, into the open ocean."
that's certainly one way to break the ice in a tense situation like this.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Given my SUV driving has yet to save me in a crash (I've not had one since buying it)... I'm glad to see it has contributed to something productive at least.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Now, I'm gunna drive my SUV 65 miles to work tomorrow and feel ok about it.
You may feel okay about it, but I feel bad for your gas card :).
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Once the ice bridge falls away, scientists will find one pissed off ice troll.
"Quick! To the Gore-Mobile!"
Its removal will allow ice to move more freely between Charcot and Latady islands, into the open ocean.
This is cause for alarm if you're concerned about iceberg free shipping lanes, correct?
If you really, really wanted to save the polar ice caps, you'd create a time machine and travel back..say, 19,000 years ago. Back when the polar ice cap extended down into what is modern day Illinois.
,"We've got to save the non-ice cap areas!"
Which predates SUVs and industrialization by around...19,000 years or so.
That is one of the global warming metrics, right? Save the shrinking polar ice cap, right? You'd need to go back to a time when you can't blame humans. Even then, you'd have to go back yet again to the previous ice age, or any of the numerous ice ages.
So...at some point 20,000 to 30,000 years from now, someone's going to say
So what? It hasn't been there forever. See, there's a natural progression on the planet. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. It's warming up, BFD. Now, I'm gunna drive my SUV 65 miles to work tomorrow and feel ok about it.
While you'll probably get +5 funny, your kids will one day give you -1 troll, my friend.
Oh, and a few inches (or feet) of ocean won't bother me. I have no beach property, nor do I intend to. Last I checked, I'm about 950 feet above sea level..
From the FA: "While the break-up will have no direct impact on sea level because the ice is floating"....
OMG!!! I'm off to the oceans!!! Otherwise boring day *sight*
Thank god we have the average mook on Slashdot or I might have thought this were cause for concern. I guess all of the scientists who have agreed that there are man-made effects on climate are completely incorrect, but this website is the last bastion of sanity?
How convenient.
So... who's bringing the gin? Vodka is cool, too.
And lemon. Mustn't forget the lemon.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The last thing we needed was a pinch at the end, then we'll be wiping for the next 100 years.
Task Mangler
Yes, finally ! That ice bridge had it coming, acting so cool when it's just like everyone else.
Stupid ice bridge.
Now you've gone and ruined his nefarious plot to continuously drive his SUV until he's the proud new owner of oceanside property. In these uncertain economic times, how else is a fella supposed to increase his property value? Huh? Huh? Bastard.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
...a few more really big ice cubes floating around should help a great deal.
oh, and as the saying goes "Pictures, or it didn't happen."
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Ohhhhhh...... *SNAP!*
-David
Not to argue the point, because it's always a holy war with folks, but there's some logistics to that, which you failed to see.
If the seas rise by 10 to 20 feet at the coastlines, coastal areas will flood. That means the ports will be under water, and nothing will come in by sea. International imports will be severely hampered. Pretty much, if you can't bring it in by plane, it won't happen.
If coastal areas flood, major highways, bridges, and train tracks will become unusable.
People will migrate from the flooded areas to higher ground (like, your 900 feet up), but food supplies will be very limited, and transportation will be very difficult without oil coming into the country.
So, even people living on high ground that won't be flooded will be affected.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Yes, because we have lost the technology to build ports...
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
OMFG, teh end awf da word haz begun. But wait!! Zesus will safe us all, lets all prey.
That means the ports will be under water, and nothing will come in by sea.
Sounds like an excellent opportunity for those in the business of building ports.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I just had a conversation with my future children through my patent-pending Future Convo Iterator(TM), and they're actually pretty happy with the way society turned out. Of course, this is in light of major technological advances in completely unrelated areas... in other words, we're not going to destroy the frigging planet. Have some faith in humanity's relentless drive to outdo itself.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
... or eat corn grown domestically.
That being said. 20 feet rise in sea levels and out boss will need to find a new office buidling.
>...and provides further evidence or rapid change in the region. Not everyone agrees. For another spin on this event take a look at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Wilkins_Ice_Shelf_con.pdf which suggests that the evidence for rapid climate change in this area is missing and suggests that, at best, hyperbole is involved.
Can someone please convert that into units we can understand, like States of Delaware, or Long Islands.
"See doc, there's a natural progression to blood pressure. High low high low. It's going up,BFD.
Now, I'm gunna eat this bag of potato chips and get a big mac and feel okay about it."
You have to love it how some people cling to the first rationalization that allows them to keep doing what they want, from the time they're kids right up to when they die.
The building of new ports takes years. They aren't something you can just knock up in a day.
That's the reason I'm fairly optimistic about that - humans as a race rarely solve any underlying problems but are very good at finding workarounds. So get ready to enjoy your hydrogen hummer!
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
There could be all sorts of cool stuff waiting to be discovered under the ice down there in Antarctica.. maybe atlantis (unlikely), or the fortress of solitude (slightly more likely), but more than anything it is really the last (mostly) unspoiled wilderness on the planet and it is a very big place!
I for one would quite like to go exploring there if it was just a tad warmer.. ;)
Sure - five years to build a port. Then start on the next for when that port is drowned.
Western side? Didn't you mean Northern side?
First, those damn Persians and their bumb, then Kim Il Jr and his rocket, and now, this. Armageddon is upon us!! FEAR GOD !! The time is FAST APPROACHING !!
Eat at Dina's !! Great food at a great price for the coming Apocalypse !!
http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html
Having trouble visualising... Seriously guys, we've already established Libraries of Congress as the arbitrary measure of choice, why introduce the size of Jamaica now?
( Redundancy is ) ^ n
that there have been a number of Richter 5 earthquakes in the area in recent years that contributed a lot to the breakup of the ice.
Sure. Let's just let everybody think it's yet another indication of anthropogenic global warming.
Just look up the USGS reports. Of course, so many people just don't want to bother doing that...
the country I live in, the Netherlands, has one fourth of the land below sealevel by as much as 48 feet already. I guess we can handle a few additional feet of water. More water spurs great engineering, and has done so since medieval times. That doesn't mean you can't leave your SUV at home and take your bicycle to work today, though.
and the seas will rise faster than the planning permission beuracracy can work its magic?
Now... If floating ice melts, how will this affect the water level? :)
(No liberal arts majors, please...)
The rising of sea levels of 10 feet will take years. Centuries even.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Idiot, first you claim to want to avoid politics, then put a crazy political barrow...
The very most aggressive estimates of sea level rise over the next hundred years is in the order of 3 feet, the average is closer to a foot, and those figures are from strong global warming proponents.
Also note that the figures used to show ANY unexpected sea level rise are from satellite, whereas the ground based (and significantly more robust..) systems do not show the same data.. oops.
Of course global climate change proponents are also now saying that cooling in the Antarctic is 'expected' as part of global warming, which of course would result in sea levels drops - luckily either way the figures are not high.
Of course, dont go letting facts get in the way of your fear.
If it were an oil field, Wall Street, Detroit or Silicone Valley, you could count on something being done about it right away. NSLIG (no such luck, I guess.)
There is nothing to FEAR but NOTHING itself; and I fear there is a whole lot of nothing going on. --scorpivs
I guess by comparison to dudes like Warren Buffett I'm pretty poor. It's kinda hard to really figure my relative economic value, though... I'm posting from a laptop I purchased in the last year, operating a couple of development servers connected to this broadband connection, in control of a few production servers in two datacenters, driving a 2006 Hyundai Sonata (hey, I like the car, lay off...), posting on Slashdot in my obvious spare time :).
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Just open the underwater port and use it as a water drain. If you do it smartly, you can remove the salt and presto, fresh water on Mars.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The ice shelf is quite north: on the Antarctic Circle. While the days are fast getting shorter, there will be only a few days without a sunrise. However, even then, the noon twilight can be quite bright, especially with all that ice and snow.
Most estimates don't account for melting of continental Ice (Antarctic). That is because most expect the antarctic climate to be stable. The observed melting of Ice is worse than the estimates suggested by climate models.
This causes concern that the antarctic climate could be much more dynamic than we think.
A change in the climate of Antarctica could lead to large amounts of continental ice melting, which would lead to sea level rises much more than a couple of feet.
That if global warming really will be a very bad thing, then our energy should be spent trying to deal with it when it happens, not prevent it. Why? Well because we are pretty sure that the Earth has been much hotter (and cooler) in the past than it is now. We are about as certain as we can be that there has been a long history of climate fluctuations. Thus it doesn't matter if the current one is natural or man made, because we are going to have to deal with one like it at some point. So that means the real focus should be how to deal with the eventuality, not how to prevent this particular one, if it is in fact preventable.
Unless we can get the ability to control the climate such that fluctuations like that won't happen again (and I seriously doubt that) then preparation is what we need. If we spend a great deal of effort preventing this shift, only to get screwed over by another one, then no good is done. Likewise if it turns out this shift is natural and nothing we can do will prevent it, again no good is done.
Now this all assume you accept the idea that a slightly warmer average temperature will lead to disastrous conditions. However that does seem to be what is claimed in general. Well, if that is in fact what you believe, then you really should be advocating focusing on how to deal with it, not how to prevent it unless you believe you can prevent it when it isn't a human caused phenomena.
It mentions that a lot of the dynamics of this situation are poorly understood. Whether or not you believe in global warming or what you think is causing it we don't know what the results are going to be.
There are so many possibilities with some scientific basis and the whole environment as a system is so complex that we can't predict details. We can paint broad strokes of the future but saying the sea level is going to raise 2.37 feet and believing that the sea will raise exactly 2.37 feet put blinders on you just like believing that a Divine Being created the universe in 6 days.
We have an idea of what MAY happen but there is so much complexity that we don't know what WILL happen. Right now it looks like shit is going to get warmer, ice is going to melt, sea levels will get higher and who knows the Gulf Stream may stop flowing causing Europe to get cold.
Some of you seriously need to stop beating the Global Warming Manifesto like it is a Bible.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
You laugh, but...
http://www.physorg.com/news5619.html
---linuxrocks123
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
Con job and spin are the correct terms for that particular web site.
This is the second time this site has popped up in the last few days. It's run by one J. D'Aleo who is paid to do so by the "Science and Public Policy Institute", they are in turn backed by "Frontiers of Freedom" which is the lobbying brain child of this guy. They have a donate button on their site but their funding is otherwise obscured.
Older readers may recall the "Frontiers of Freedom" also backed the tabacoo industry in their anti-science campaign.
Disclaimer: I don't have anything against lobbyists or politicians until they pretend to be something they are not.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Lowest point in the Netherlands is 6.76m (just over 22 feet) below sea-level, near Nieuwerkerk-aan-de-IJssel.
An iceberg displaces its weight in water (as all floating bodies do). That means that thawing of it won't change the water level at all.
Except when it has a truly odd shape: Think of a sinking ship. When it floats it displaces its weight in water. When it is sunk, then it displaces its volume in water. For a ship the volume is much less than its weight. Sinking a ship will actually lower the water level.
Iceberg don't (generally) have a lot of significant cavities, so the water level won't change much.
Has anyone ever considered what would happen to marine life if the icecaps were to melt?
I mean, not only the sea levels will be rising, but the ocean will desalinate which might, or might not, inversely affect things like plankton, which might further disrupt the atmosphere by reducing oxigen release, not to mention the impact on the food chain (this includes us btw)
Do a bit of looking around and you will find more and more geologists are associating some earthquakes with climatic effects - such as weathering of the Himalayas. Did the earthquakes cause the breakup or are they simply associated? (correlation!=causation).
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Wait you mean it's not like filling a bath tub?
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
Every last one of us is going to die (at least everyone alive this second), some of us might help ourselves to opt out of this whole life deal a little bit early, some not. Sure it sucks that we have to foot the bill (as taxpayers) for the heart attacks those idiots get for sucking down 3 pounds of oily beef every day, but really, in 200 years we will be that black and white turn of the century photo you look at and think "They are all dead now... Pretty ugly fashion sense too."
Nobody will really care that much, so does it really matter?
Unlike the coming floods, of which we'll have no warning because there aren't bazillions of climate scientists and doomsayers watching the earth's climate like a hawk for evidence of the sea levels rising.
A lot of airports around the world are on coastal plains, because the land there is flat and cheap.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Ice is white and reflects a lot of heat back into space. If this ice melts it may cause ice elsewhere to melt faster.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Is there enough money left for that after the stimulus package? I can't see there being enough here in the UK, although the jobs would be a good thing
I wonder if it would be possible to build floating ports, with a similar floating bridge to the mainland. I'm guessing it would be much more expensive, but definitely adaptable to changing sea levels.
Dude, you've come up with the solution! All we need to do is build loads of ships, then sink them. It will spur economic recovery (shipbuilding) and reverse the rising seas (global warming). You're a genius! It's foolproof!
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
Perfect back story for a Cool Runnings 2...?
If an ice cube floating in a glass of water melts, the water will still be at the same level afterwards.
If a floating iceberg melts, it will add water to the oceans, causing the average water level to be the same.
However, there is still more water in motion, so the effect of the tide will probably be larger.
(Also, I was under the impression that the Antarctic ice wasn't floating? Or maybe this section was?)
More ice has melted.
And then...
More ice has melted.
And then...
I think everyone gets it by now. The ice at the poles is melting and there is little anyone can do about it. The Earth's climate changes from time to time. It has changed abruptly in the past (ice cores) and will do so in the future. "Man's" responsibility is and will be debatable. If your climate is riding a razors edge and man pushes the Earth into a warming or cooling cycle is it really man's fault? Man sure does like blaming him/herself for global cycles. I guess because we are _so_ important in the Universe. If Man has thrown the Global Climate cycle out of wack, Earth's history has proven that it will self correct. Now can Man be flexible enough to survive it? That is the better question.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Nice one :)
Already done
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Relax dude, it's just Gilligan moving the stick out further to catch more crabs.
How to make it sink while it still has positive buoyancy is left as an exercise for the reader.
and the seas will rise faster than the planning permission beuracracy can work its magic?
It isn't called a bureaucracy for nothing.
Just wait until we form a committee to look into the possibility of considering a tendering process for the production of the guidelines for selecting a committee to look into the possibility of constructing a sea port.
Hell, this could take CENTURIES!
I am not stubborn. I am right!
Finally! Thank god we got rid of that damn bridge!
Wow! April is winter in Antartica? And you got modded informative???
Slashdot moderators seem particularly, well, stupid on this topic today...
P.S. You're right about your ice receding, but that's not because it's getting colder
The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures (Junius)
What I want to know is the worst-case scenario. Say ALL of the world's ice melts. How high does the sea level rise? Has anyone done the definitive study? Links?
This is important because the sea level change will happen in a matter of days, right?
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
gets modded: (Score:5, Insightful)?
Where's the insight? He didn't parse a logical argument; he didn't even attempt to engage in reasonable discourse. He didn't address the many reasons already posted why building ports is a poor solution to the problem he waves away. I would think his post is flamebait at best, and he's Insightful ?
I hope you lose your grasp of science, reason and consequences the same way the parent poster did.
The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures (Junius)
Aren't these case disjunct because the ice-shelf is well... a shelf and not a cube. Doesn't that influence the change?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
But you are obviously unable to buy yourself the one thing that matters: a sense of humor.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114898/
If all the ice in the world were to melt, and the odds of this happening are virtually 0, then we're looking at a 200+ft rise in ocean levels. However, the higher probability estimates are for a 24 inch rise by 2100. Not a great source in itself but the references are not bad: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
some one must of used the Antarctic stargate or the weapons platform there.
I'm pretty positive that the reason this ice shelf broke off is that there is an over-abundance of ice and with all that new ice forming, some of it has to go somewhere. Here, do the numbers yourself : http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/bist/bist.pl?no_panel=1&annot=1&legend=1&scale=75&tab_cols=2&tab_rows=2&config=seaice_index&submit=Refresh&mo0=01&hemis0=S&img0=extn&mo1=01&hemis1=S&img1=conc&year0=2009&year1=1980&.cgifields=no_panel
Sig? No thanks. I don't smoke.
ICEBERG!!!!
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do.
If an ice cube floating in a glass of water melts, the water will still be at the same level afterwards.
If a floating iceberg melts, it will add water to the oceans, causing the average water level to be the same.
However, there is still more water in motion, so the effect of the tide will probably be larger.
(Also, I was under the impression that the Antarctic ice wasn't floating? Or maybe this section was?)
I read recently (i think it was on the naked scientist) that these large masses of ice have a small gravitational field. They pull water close to them. When the ice bergs break up, they lose mass and gravity. The article was suggesting that water levels will rise because the water that was pulled by the icebergs will now be in the ocean.
...in January we landed on it in a helicoptor and stuck a GPS unit into it.
I guess the GPS unit was hammered into the ice :)
Oriental Hero "I want to live in a city where the Police don't shoot you" Jean Charles de Menezes
Could you provide us with falsifiable predictions that global warming theorists have made?
Specifically, predictions which are measurable, have come true, are based on the underlying science, and aren't intuitive.
Something like "given x amount of C02 and y amount of sun activity the global mean temp will be z over this period of time."
I honestly haven't seen that. Until I do, I will continue to remain skeptical about the underlying science. There are way too many variables involved for me to have confidence that the scientific community has reached a definitive and correct answer.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
So that means I (or anyone who gets there first) can go there and claim it's the National Republic of Icelanadonia and host porn and copyrighted material?
That's a bad analogy. A clear link between obesity, poor diet and high blood pressure have been shown; the same can not be said for Man made CO2 and global warming.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Keep telling yourself that.
So this guy lands an aircraft on the ice bridge back in January, and three months later -- Bang! The bridge collapses. I think he owes us a bridge.
No (obviously), but it would depend on how fast the water rises.
Besides just the pesky problem of the port, there's the infrastructure that goes with it.
For just one example, at 10', Manhattan would start looking like Venice. Tunnels, railways, and 3 major airports would become useless. There's a lot of infrastructure to rebuild elsewhere.
If you look around, a lot of airports and power plants are situated very close to sea level, on the waterfront. Airports use this for noise abatement (the planes can take off over the water to keep from annoying people). Nuclear plants require lots of sea water for cooling.
So, ports, sure they could be rebuilt. But have you ever watched what happens around the planning of new facilities? Years upon years of arguing points. People would argue about the environmental impact of the new facility, and the remains of the old facility.
I don't know what the thresholds are, but I'm sure once you reach a critical point (say 10'), more cities will have problems quicker. Say between 10' and 15', there could be not only one or two, but dozens of major coastal cities that would need to be rebuilt simultaneously.
Don't forget about fresh water reserves too. Water wells would start becoming contaminated with sea water too. You could rebuild the city near by, but can you restore their essential supplies like drinking water?
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Nope.
Ice always displaces it's volume in water. Period. The shape of the ice isn't relevant. Indeed; the largest, heaviest, "most likely to displace water" portions of an irregular ice shape will always be under water, displacing water.
Little known fact: As an iceberg melts it rolls over and over, constantly putting the heaviest largest section under water. Once that section melts enough (being exposed to the melting effects of salt water) the berg rolls over, and the top becomes the bottom and vice-versa.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Here's a mash-up site that purports to show the effects of global sea level rising in increments of 1 meter, up to +14m. I make no claim as to the accuracy of the info it presents, I just happened to find it a while back while researching hurricane storm surge.
http://flood.firetree.net/
Personally, none of this worries me in the least - I live on a boat. :D Maybe that's something more people, especially global warming fanatics, should consider.
Wait, then they would be my neighbors. Ugh, scratch that. I can't stand fanatics. Except for the hot-nyphomaniac-in-a-bikini sort of fanatic. Those, I don't mind... ;)
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
I was with you right up to the "...so does it really matter?" There is the crux of the matter, I guess. Does it matter? I am thinking "yes", obviously, not only for what may or may not happen to me after I die (a debatable subject, obviously, to some) but for what my life's effects are to other folks's lives. Positive, hopefully, for a similar reason, actually. Btw, in Southeast Asia in some Buddhist temples, some monks keep pictures of de-composing dead people to help them not get too attached (or to be become less attached, at least) to this life. Web sites, too. Interesting stuff. I could not find a link to any of the pictures, but, a bit ironically, instead discovered a paper on the medieval Japanese art form of painting the "9 stages" of decomposing bodies. (New to me, too. I think I'll go read it now. Later.)
:-)
My mom says I'm cool.
Sorry, meant to add the link to the post above. Medieval Japanese Art of Decomposing Bodies Paintings. A morbid read, indeed.
Well, most gas usage experts show that driving ~65 MPH is the sweet spot for optimal MPG. It's much better then 80 MPH, or 20 MPH in stop and go traffic.
If part a glacier gently calves off and just floats away, then it doesn't affect seawater volume. It is the equivalent of an icecube floating in a glass.
If it crashes into the ocean because it was being held mostly out of the water by the structure of the glacier it was attached to, it does add to the volume of the ocean. It is the analog dropping of an icecube into a glass of water.
In either case, it was evidenced in Greenland that the runoff of meltwater from inland glaciers is also finding it's way to the sea, accelerating glacier loss on the coast, and adding their own volume to the mix.
The inference is that little changes in climate may produce big changes in environment in a short period of time. My takeaway is that this may be a bad century to invest in beachfront property and that dike and canal building companies could become a serious growth industry.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
>Now, I'm gunna drive my SUV 65 miles to work tomorrow and feel ok about it.
This is the ugly side of fighting a war using an all-volunteer force... ... there will always be people flaunting waste instead. Or flaunting that they're above it all.
Conserving resources for the war effort is patriotic, although you'd have to read a history book to see wealthy people doing just that.
i really can't believe how wrong you are
-Kz-
Also from TFA: "Separate research shows that when ice shelves are removed, the glaciers and landed ice behind them start to move towards the ocean more rapidly. It is this ice which can raise sea levels, but by how much is a matter of ongoing scientific debate."
There's also eustatic sea level rise due to the thermal expansion of sea water (less ice = warmer water)
Ice has a lower density than water, wouldn't that mean that it has less gravity then the water around it?
DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
Or is it?
The local mean sea level (LMSL) won't be the same for everybody, though, due to the Isostatic effects of ice-sheets. Basically where there are large amounts of ice that ice weighs down the Earth's surface. When the ice melts the surface gradually rises to equilibrium.
Has there ever been less ice than there is today?
Mine is Good
Already done
You beat me to it.. I was going to mention WWII as a counterexample.
From Wikipedia:
Deployment
By June 9, just 3 days after D-Day, two harbours codenamed Mulberry 'A' and 'B' were constructed at Omaha Beach and Arromanches, respectively.
So yes, you could set up a port in 3 days (if you know beforehand about it)
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Don't forget about fresh water reserves too. Water wells would start becoming contaminated with sea water too. You could rebuild the city near by, but can you restore their essential supplies like drinking water?
You could always build a desalination plant. I don't think that most cities get their water from wells, either. In my experience, at least in the Western USA, metropolitan water supplies come from large sources of groundwater, such as a reservoir.
What about the poor chap Wilkins, never name something that floats away and melts after yourself.
Oh no! Another iceberg source! *YAWN*
Get your Kicks on Route 66
an excellent point.
however i wonder if the difference in density due to salinity between iceberg ice and ocean water is the same as that between freshwater ice and the "concentrated saltwater" shown in the experiment.
also, glacier ice often contains small pockets of compressed air, which is why it fizzes and pops when put in a glass of water, and this may also affect its density.
Have you alrady decided on a methodology for considering the tendering process? I guess you are jumping some stages here, be carefull, so your project don't off-track later because of it.
Too bad I don't have mod-points today.
Rethinking email
Thanks to Google:
100 feet = 30.48 meters
24 inches = 0.6096 meters
Rethinking email
Didn't New Orleans had a port?
Meanwhile temperatures still are subzero in Edmonton, Alberta, and there is still a foot of snow on the ground. I believe this whole 'global climate change' when I take my parka off.
Are you listening Mr Suzuki?
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
That really depends on where you are, and what is available.
I found This Reference at the USGS. Los Angeles uses groundwater (river), and I know they have reservoirs, but they also use groundwater to supplement the groundwater.
If you happen to be sitting on a nice mountain, with a good sized lake, fed by snow melt, and the snow level remain enough to keep the lake fed, then you'd be doing very well.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Historical records for the western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) show that it is particularly prone to rapid climate change--change that occurs in cycles of ~200 years and ~2500 years. By studying major transitions in plankton productivity in the western Antarctic, scientists have shown that "spectacular" ice-cover losses have happened many times in the past. In other words, the "unprecedented rapid loss of ice" from parts of Antarctica that global warming alarmists make so much of are a normal part of nature's cycles. What else would you expect during the peak of an interglacial warming period? This is from a paper titled "Recent Changes in Phytoplankton Communities Associated with Rapid Regional Climate Change Along the Western Antarctic Peninsula," by Martin Montes-Hugo, et al, in Science. For more see http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/melting-antarctic-ice-part-natural-cycle
Some are even built on what was once covered in water. Till they threw enough rocks into build on. Not that they could have done it without help from space aliens.
They have both been "shown" to the satisfaction of general scientific consensus, and both have their de jure and de facto deniers and skeptics.
Enjoy your riches after your beach front properties are destroyed after rising ocean levels and extreme weather caused by global warming, and the insurance companies all go bust.
Have fun.
The Internet is generally stupid
Actually, while we never got real flying cars, the surplus of helium produced by fusion powerplants caused a rise (NPI) in Airship transportation. Now we have solar powered, flying, vehicles that do 400KPH for "pennies" a day.
Don't forget the committee to redefine policies for environmental impact studies due to a modified ecological state. And of course, the committee formed to determine if such a committee would be necessary.
The Internet is generally stupid
It is, but in the way a toddler does it: using the water already in the tub.
That or a brand new business of building cargo carrying submarines.
The Internet is generally stupid
This was modded interesting? An article that claims the difference in solution affects the buoyancy and thus the displacement was refuted with an argument about *shape*, and it was freakin' modded interesting? :)
These guys are taking good care of that for ya'. Grow your own corn and fleece a company out of a buck will you, you commie bastard.
The upside of all the ice melting is that Kevin Costner will mutate and form gills.
The Internet is generally stupid
Now, we'll be able to utilise an multiple-targeting anti-avian geological-based projectile system.
Well, most gas usage experts show that driving ~65 MPH is the sweet spot for optimal MPG. It's much better then 80 MPH, or 20 MPH in stop and go traffic.
Given that wind resistance goes up as the square of your speed, and that rolling resistance is negligible at highway speeds, I am skeptical. Roughly, it takes 1.3 times the work (and 2.2 times the power) to cover a certain distance at 65mph than at 50mph. If drivetrains can be tuned to the tune of 30% just by fiddling with gearing, then cars would probably have more gears, or maybe CVTs. Also, this number is confirmed by my own very rough measurements in a few cars, when I actually have the discipline to drive 50mph over a long enough stretch of flat highway.
Of course, you stipulated "stop-and-go traffic" in which case a huge portion of your gasoline is used to heat up your brake rotors. Fair enough. But 65mph cannot possibly be a magic number given similar acceleration profiles.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Allowing ports to be an integral part of the perpetual economic stimulus plan.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Greenpeacers broke off that chunk in order to convince people that their fantasy "globular heating" religion is real. Or maybe it would have broken off anyways but humans aren't responsible--too many polar bears sitting around on an ice shelf for 6000 years are bound to cause some damage eventually. This might happen again if we don't kill all the polar bears. Actually, it's all a liberal pinko lie--you're so gullible, since the ice bridge is just fine, thanks very much. Scientists are out to destroy us all. Haven't you seen them in movies?
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Obviously the answer is giant sea walls and desalination plants?
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
In your small scale experiment, the ice cubes are floating freely, and already mostly under water. In reality, there is a significant amount of ice in Antarctica that resides above sea level, resting directly on terra firma.
Sigs are for losers
You forget that it doesn't matter if we are the primary/sole cause, or a tiny blip in the radar. We'll still be just as fucked if we don't learn how to adapt to the changes.
Now, I'm not saying the change will occur in the next 1, 5, 50, or 500 years. It could even be millennia from now. But let me posit this question, which I feel makes a good analog to doing something about climate change.
We know the Sun will go red giant in approximately 5 billion years, and at that point we will be fucked if we're still living on this mudball. How long before then should we begin looking into how we can survive out in deep space, and why did you pick the time that you did and not something closer to now?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
you know, there's a crazy theory out there that a huge crust-shift moved atlantis to its current location, the antarctic. This break away of ice could soon reveal that long lost civilization. And then the predators will move in.
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
Care to tell me which parts are wrong?
I grow my own SUVs you insensitive clod!
Actually, I was thinking more like better designed population centers away from the coastline, with more of an aim towards self sufficiency. With encouragement for people to move to the better nicer places, which could operate cleaner than our existing cities, we'd not only have a chance to fix a lot of broken things, but we'd be able to reduce our pollution output, so the ocean side problem wouldn't be one. But once the coastal areas are properly cleaned, they'd be a beautiful place to visit. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I did a quick look at Google maps of the peninsula, on satellite view. It looks to me like the peninsula is at one end of an under-sea mountain range that continues straight up through the South American mountains. Is that area tectonicly active? as in earthquakes or volcanos? Flex the ice tray, the ice breaks. Heat the ice tray, the ice melts.
"Less gravity" doesn't make sense. It has less weight than the volume of water it displaces - that's why it floats. Going further, a given chunk of ice will weigh as much as about 9/10th the same volume of water - hence why it'll float with 9/10 of itself below the waterline.
I am trolling
Yeah, but what he and Lex Luthor stupidly failed to realize, is that whether you set-off nukes to trigger the San Andreas fault to drop California into the ocean, or if you drive your SUV to crank up global warming; one undeniable fact remains:
You have just drowned all the people who even WANTED to live near the ocean. Your property values will NOT go up!!!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4khXkE5gEI
"Oh look, that was Wilkins of Finance!"
"Robertson"
"Wilkins"
"Robertson!"
"Wilkins!"
"....Oh, that was Wilkins"
"THAT was Wilkins"
Edith Keeler Must Die
This "ice bridge" was already floating, IIRC, so no change in sea levels here.
In any case, given there's an active volcano somewhat nearby, this one may be unrelated to global warming.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Phew, finally! I've been waiting for a long time for this!
Okay, Bill Gates... just calm down.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Sure - five years to build a port. Then start on the next for when that port is drowned.
Well, yeah, if you're building serial ports. Try parallel ports for better throughput...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Well, according to broken window theory it will stimulate the economy.
Again, it is asserted that the ice sheet has broken free from both islands, when a quick perusal of TFA says that it's only broken loose from one of the two islands, and is still firmly attached to the other.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Good try.
But in the broken window theory, the money the shop owner had originally could have gone to other needs. Instead of purchasing a new window (and the trail it follows), he may have bought a goat to provide milk to his family, in turn using the money he saved on buying milk to buy other things. (blah, blah, blah).
The whole broken window theory just forces money from one place, (the shop owner), and puts it somewhere else. The idea is driven by the idea that someone who can afford to own a business has more money than they need, and the people of lower economic stature deserve it. It's just about as economically sound as Robin Hood.
If Manhattan was overcome with water (say a 2' MSL rise, a 5' high tide, and an 8' storm surge, rather than the evil 10' global warming MSL rise), over a million people could be without power, transportation, food deliveries, and their housing may not be safe for months or years. Sure, it's good for the economy, if someone can afford to fix it. Look at how well New Orleans has recovered. It's been almost 4 years, and they're still far from "recovered". Please reference my previously linked article for more information on what could happen to Manhattan.
But hey, who cares, I live on high ground, right? :)
Right now, I couldn't see rebuilding one major metro area, either in situ or elsewhere. Besides the financial "how do you pay for labor and supplies", the new problem becomes, how do you get the supplies to where they're needed? If trucks can't come over bridges that no longer exist, highways and railroad lines are closed, and the ports are under water ... well ... A tarp and a few sticks make a nice lean-to.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
No actually the assumption was that the ice bridge that broke loose helped to hold back the land-borne ice from descending into the ocean; but I'm a damned denier so you can't believe anything I say.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Aren't they working on a cure for cancer anyway?
I mean, something is going to eventually give me cancer.
So, why quit smoking?
This meme again?
Yes, the Earth's climate changes. No, it has NEVER changed so rapidly. Ice ages happen over tens of thousands of years, anthropogenic climate change is taking place in a couple of hundred. Orders of magnitude, people.
sustainable living
Of course, you stipulated "stop-and-go traffic" in which case a huge portion of your gasoline is used to heat up your brake rotors. Fair enough. But 65mph cannot possibly be a magic number given similar acceleration profiles.
Did you do the math for 88mph, yet?
Large by what standard? Projected increase in atmospheric CO2 are on the order of a couple of percent or so. Predictions of the temperature rise are on the order of 4 degrees Kelvin. On the absolute temperature scale, the only one that makes physical sense, that's an increase of maybe 1.5%. That doesn't seem so large compared to the 37% increase in CO2 since the 1700's. The projected increase in sea level is a few feet, also a small percentage of the total ocean depth.
Unfortunately, small percentage changes in the natural world can sometimes have dramatic effects on people. Hardly surprising. After all, if your body temperature rises by 5%, you are pretty sick.
And you say that you are a scientist? In some nonmathematical field, I presume?
In the real world, many things manage to be both effects and causes. Most of us learn this basic fact about nature in childhood, from contemplation of the the famous riddle, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
Those who understand this riddle don't find anything particularly remarkable about the fact that CO2 can either lead or follow, depending upon circumstances--it is possible for an increase in CO2 to cause an increase in temperature, and it is also possible for an increase in temperature to cause an increase in CO2. In the former case, CO2 leads temperature; in the latter case it follows.
The post was meant to be ironic, but thanks for such a detailed explanation :)
That's like a moron, such as yourself, saying that all brushfires are started by mankind.
Heh...if someone ever builds a submarine that you can drop containers onto like a barge I will poop my pants in awe :)
The people my actions are going to affect (both in the present and the future generations) will themselves die eventually. The whole universe will inevitably end with either heat death or a Big Crunch, rendering all personal actions futile. So, in a purely materialistic and cosmological point of view, do the effects of my actions really matter? No, it doesn't.
A Buddhist can look at pictures of decomposing remains and conclude that he must not be worldly. Yet he can also (if he chooses to) look a the same pictures and conclude that nothing hinders him from being worldly, for the worldly and the non-worldly alike will end up rotting in the end; one might as well do as he wishes, for everything is an illusion (ah, that inspired Buddhist phrase!).
For the record, I do not subscribe to the cynical philosophy I tried to illustrate in the above paragraphs. But given that we do not live in a perfect Christian society where such a philosophy would not exist, environmentalists will have to look for better arguments than "it's nice to be nice to other people" and "you can't take your SUV with you when you die". Because in a doomed, absurd, or illusory universe of atheists or Buddhists, "clinging to the first rationalization that allows people to keep doing what they want" is a perfectly rational thing to do.
- Francis Ocoma
Please wait while Sig Request is being processed...
no, but some of the ladies that hang around the ports can get knocked up in minutes...
Again, this is a scientifically illiterate comment. The earth receives an immense amount of energy from the sun. So it is obvious that even a small change in either the rate of energy influx or energy efflux could make a substantial difference in the equilibrium temperature.
Suggesting that a "trace" gas can have little effect is foolish and unscientific. What matters is what it does, not its absolute level. A "trace" level of cyanide will kill you. The fact that atmospheric levels of CO2 make a major contribution to the energy balance of the earth has been known since the 17th century. There is no meaningful scientific dispute about this.
Since the Arctic completely melted in 2008; according to the Global Warming Scientists, who have a consensus and thus are never wrong; there shouldn't be that much more ice up there to melt. Thus any more rise in sea level should only be about what we have already experienced. I think most of the sea ports still exist above water, so I don't think we have too much to worry about.
Or do you think that the consensus is wrong, and the Arctic didn't completely melt in 2008? If you think they might have been wrong, then why do you believe them this time?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
You are James Burke and I claim my five pounds. Or are you? And do I?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That doesn't answer the question.
The parent that I was asking the question to stated that icebergs had their own gravity and it actually 'pulled' water close to them, then as they melted it would loose the gravity and the water wouldn't be 'pulled' close.
My question is, if the iceberg has less density then the surrounding water, wouldn't the gravitational field of the iceberg be less then the gravitational field of the surrounding water?
DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
Oh, sorry, somehow managed to miss what you were replying to. Yes, and I'm pretty sure the gravitational attraction of water to the iceberg is negligible in any case.
I am trolling
Arctic Ice melts is a very dynamic system and much is replaced in the following winter. It doesn't matter much either way, because about 90% of floating ice's volume is below water, thus sea ice (arctic) only contributes 10% of it's volume to sea level rise. Continental Ice OTOH is a different matter.