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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.
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. Which predates SUVs and industrialization by around...19,000 years or so.
You could also increase the number of pirates.
Speaking from naval experience here...
What does your bellybutton have to do with icebergs?
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
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.
"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.
http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_01_12_a_suv.html
Someone once brought this home to me quite nicely - he said if 9 out of 10 doctors said your child had appendicitis, and only 1 said it was trapped gas, would you go home and 'wait and see'?
Even if you were nervous about the risks of an operation, the risks of ignoring it are much worse - if it turns out to be appendicitis.
Sure, it might be nothing, just like global warming might not be our fault, but would you take the chance?
Mark
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I am a climate scientist. I've never been in politics and I've never sold anything (professional student here). I also think you're completely wrong. My experiences at the 2008 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union are that most (9/10) of the scientists I met agree with the IPCC report on abrupt climate change.
But you've made an even more fundamental mistake. Science isn't democratic-- it's about evidence. Open up the IPCC reports yourself and focus on what's really important, instead of trying to count how many people are on each side.
For example, Vostok ice core data confirms that for nearly half a million years, the climate has changed cyclically. But in all that time, the maximum CO2 concentration never went above 300 ppm. (It's hit higher levels millions of years ago, but that was a slow and gradual change. Plus the Earth was essentially a different planet back then, with a different solar luminosity and biosphere so comparisons across that much time are tricky.)
You're right to say that natural variations are evident in the data, but the most prominent cycles over geological time are governed by (among other effects) Milankovitch cycles which are caused by periodic variations in the earth's orbit.
But, CO2 concentrations are at 380 ppm today. That's a level it hasn't hit in the last half million years. If we're seeing natural variability alone, it's quite a coincidence that it occurs right when we started excavating fossil fuels to fuel a billion cars.
Plus, the Vostok data is a little difficult to analyze in this manner, but it seems like at Vostok the CO2 always increased 600 years AFTER the temperature started to increase. At least, that's the way it used to work. Right now, the CO2 concentration is at an unprecedented level but the temperature is barely above normal. Again, that suggests that we're not facing natural climate change, we're dealing with anthropogenic abrupt climate change.
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.
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.
The Antarctic as a whole is not cooling, but warming with the rest of the world, some data from some places showed it was cooling and of course this was expounded by denialists as proof that warming wasn't global.
see : http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/state-of-antarctica-red-or-blue
The Antarctic's ice is melting much less than the arctic because the antarctic gets a lot of it's coldness from it's altitude (mountains etc), whereas the arctic is just floating ice, and is also adjacent to more land and less water - water stabilises temperature - so this makes the arctic more sensitive to temperature changes. But the edge bits are melting.
I think the ice shelves breaking is more likely to be caused by sea level rise though. Where the sea level cracks the ice off from the land. Which shows the non linear nature of ice melting. We don't just get ice melting linearly with temperature increases, we can get whole chunks breaking off and floating away
Yes, I've seen those bizarre claims as well. I don't think any physicist seriously doubts the warming properties of CO2. The spectrum of the sun, absorption lines of CO2 and their relevant thermodynamic relationships are simply too well established. They're freshman-level homework problems, not cutting edge research areas.
I brought that up because I'm concerned about the fact that current warming is highly atypical in that regard. What happens when the natural positive feedback of CO2 adds to what we've already dumped into the atmosphere?