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Chain Reaction Shattered Antarctica's Larson B Ice Shelf

New submitter Jim McNicholas writes "At the end of the summer of 2002, all 3000 lakes on the Larsen B ice shelf drained away in the space of a week. And then the 2,700-square-kilometre ice shelf, which was some 220 metres thick and might have existed for some 12,000 years, rapidly disintegrated into small icebergs. The draining of one lake on an ice shelf changes the stress field in nearby areas, causing a fracture circle to form around the lake."

11 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It would be great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Sea levels rose 2.4 millimeters per year between 2006 and 2011. Extrapolating that increase for the next 90 years suggests an overall increase of about 212 millimeters by 2100, or just over 8 inches. A lot different than the 4 feet rise the scare stories try to claim.

  2. Re:Global warming by tgibbs · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, it wasn't "the same so-called scientists," it was a couple of guys who were out of the mainstream, although it got some sensationalist play in the mainstream media. Even back then, the consensus favored warming due to CO2 release, although there was a lot more uncertainty about how much. Anybody who cares about facts rather than propaganda can easily verify this for themselves--the original scientific literature of the time is available in any major university library and much of it, or at least the abstracts, is available online.

  3. Re:on a volcano spewing CO2 by able1234au · · Score: 3, Informative

    They probably did notice it was a volcano

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/Measuring-CO2-levels-from-the-volcano-at-Mauna-Loa.html

    >But how about gas from the volcano? It is true that volcanoes blow out CO2 from time to time and that this can interfere with the readings. Most of the time, though, the prevailing winds blow the volcanic gasses away from the observatory. But when the winds do sometimes blow from active vents towards the observatory, the influence from the volcano is obvious on the normally consistent records and any dubious readings can be easily spotted and edited out (Ryan, 1995).

  4. Re:on a volcano spewing CO2 by able1234au · · Score: 4, Informative

    or this one
    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/mauna-loa-co2-record/

    >Most of the time, the observatory experiences “baseline” conditions and measures clean air which has been over the Pacific Ocean for days or weeks. We know this because the CO2 analyzer usually gives a very steady reading which varies by less than 3/10 of a part per million (ppm) from hour to hour. These are the conditions we use to calculate the monthly averages that go into the famous 50-year graph of atmospheric CO2 concentration.

    We only detect volcanic CO2 from the Mauna Loa summit late at night at times when the regional winds are light and southerly. Under these conditions, a temperature inversion forms above the ground, and the volcanic emissions are trapped near the surface and travel down our side of the mountain slope. When the volcanic emissions arrive at the observatory, the CO2 analyzer readings increase by several parts per million, and the measured amounts become highly variable for periods of several minutes to a few hours. In the last decade, this has occurred on about 15% of nights between midnight and 6 a.m.

  5. Re:oh, so they edited the data for 15% of the days by able1234au · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you follow either link there is a graph showing data from other sites and Mauna Loa's readings perfectly align with them.

    Think about this another way... if the results were skewed by the volcano it could be fairly easily proven and that scientist would get a lot of publicity. It is not for want of trying. But the fact is that the effects are known and accounted for and in the second link you can see someone actually studying the CO2 outgassing of the volcano.

    There are many thousands of scientist around the world studying this topic. If there were big holes in the theory then the denier community would make sure that people knew about it. But there is not, their responses are mostly wrapped in ignorance of the science.

    And the science is not all built on one single data point (eg atmospheric temperatures) but instead a wealth of data, all of which supports that CO2 is rising, that human activity is the major contributor and that there are effects on the climate.

  6. Re:Reporting on events in 2002? by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    They're not reporting the fact that Larsen B broke up because it was well reported at the time. I saw pictures. This post is reporting the results of a just published study of why it broke up as it did.

  7. Re:It would be great by riverat1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Kind of like how carbon dioxide passed 400 parts per million for the first time in human history yet the effect was much less than predicted.

    The effect has not been "much" less than predicted. It's still within the 95% confidence range of the predictions, albeit on the low side. If you factor in things like the lowest solar cycle in a century and the predominance of La Nina years since 2007 it's not surprising temperatures are running on the low side of predictions..

  8. Re:Future? by riverat1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    In fact the break up of an Ice Shelf doesn't change sea level at all because an ice shelf is already floating in water. What it can do though is reduce the back pressure on the face of the ice sheet/glacier that is feeding the ice shelf causing it to speed up and put more ice in the sea which does raise sea level.

  9. Re:Global warming by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    there is no such thing as man made "climate change" (they had to change the name since the warming wasn't happening).

    No, "climate change" has been around since at least 1970 as shown in an October 1970 paper by George Benton titled "Carbon Dioxide and its Role in Climate Change"

  10. Re:on a volcano spewing CO2 by able1234au · · Score: 5, Informative

    No confusion. Antarctic sea ice is growing, due to increased calving. There is some increase in land ice due to increased moisture. Normally the centre of Antarctica is a very dry place. The increased moisture is from the warming of the oceans, the same process which is increasing the calving. Of course, denier sites focus on the increase sea ice, saying that is a good thing, and the increase in snowing, also saying that is a good thing. They conveniently ignore the fact that these are bad things, not good and that overall the antarctic is losing ice. A triumph of spin over science.

  11. Re:This was the only version (R) would accept. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Democrats passed the ACA bill without any Republican help or input.

    Really, then why was it practically a carbon copy of prior Republican plans, and functionally identical to the infamous Romneycare?

    They rammed it through congress with Nancy Pelosi famously stating, " we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

    Your misrepresentation here discredits you. Perhaps you should learn what she really said, which was about how so many lies and misrepresentations had been told about the bill that the only way America would find out what was actually in it would be for it to be passed.

    Oh wait, that narrative isn't the one you want to put forward, is it?

    There was absolutely no compromise for the Republicans to accept. The Democrats passed the exact bill they wanted because they had control of both houses of congress and the White House.

    Really? Then where's the public option Democrats wanted? Sorry, but they passed the exact bill Republicans wanted, Republicans just didn't want to admit it, so they pretended to oppose it, and still make big shows of worthless repeal votes.