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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."
I'm waiting to see the live video footage of that scene where the poor sweet little baby polar bear is trapped on an ice floe which shrinks until he falls off to be eaten by sharks or some garbage like that *splash*
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
You presume that the ice will not float northwards into the shipping lanes. All that ice can travel a long ways before melting.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Yes, but that still requires you to go around them, boosting costs as they need to burn more fuel.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
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?
So by your reasoning we Aussies should not be arresting arsonists who are responsible for starting about 1/3 of all our bushfires. We should let them continue with their bussiness as usual because we know that the other 2/3 of bushfires are started by natural causes.
BTW: This particular environmentalist doesn't care if you drive an SUV, a sherman tank, or a skateboard.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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
We actively change our environment to our benefit. We light the night, warm our houses, deforest our countries, mine our resources...
The argument of "it's natural" is stupid. If it's natural, modify nature. We are constantly doing it.
Why? Because this change does NOT benefit us.
So, nature doesn't want to change (or we don't know how to coerce her)?
Well, at least don't help the change!
"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 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.
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"
It ain't about the ice caps, some of us want to try and save the people.
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.
Carbon needs an internationaly agreed and enforced CAP on total emmissions in order to create an economically and environmentally sound market to TRADE it.
That will not produce a shortest path solution to the problem. The fastest, least expensive and most humane solution is to quickly get the developing world past the high-pollution stage of industrialization. There are essentially two ways to make cleaner energy sources cost-competitive with dirtier ones: make the dirty ones more expensive or make the cleaner ones less expensive. The latter will ruin fewer lives in the long run.
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.
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.