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A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf Grew 17 Miles in the Last Two Months

Jugal K Patel, writing for the NYTimes: A rapidly advancing crack in Antarctica's fourth-largest ice shelf has scientists concerned that it is getting close to a full break. The rift has accelerated this year in an area already vulnerable to warming temperatures. Since December, the crack has grown by the length of about five football fields each day (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source). The crack in Larsen C now reaches over 100 miles in length, and some parts of it are as wide as two miles. The tip of the rift is currently only about 20 miles from reaching the other end of the ice shelf. Once the crack reaches all the way across the ice shelf, the break will create one of the largest icebergs ever recorded, according to Project Midas, a research team that has been monitoring the rift since 2014. Because of the amount of stress the crack is placing on the remaining 20 miles of the shelf, the team expects the break soon.

14 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. Well, damn by Kierthos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a good thing that climate change is a load of bollocks according to the Trump administration. I'm sure a group of people as competent as the ones that are around Trump know what they're talking about. I mean, otherwise, we might have to be worried.

    (THIS IS SARCASM)

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    Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    1. Re:Well, damn by Calydor · · Score: 5, Funny

      And the penguins will pay for it!

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      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    2. Re:Well, damn by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Does it matter why the ship is leaking water? Wether it's your fault or not, wouldn't you want to prevent it from sinking?

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      #DeleteFacebook
    3. Re:Well, damn by Layzej · · Score: 4, Informative

      The linked article says that these collapses happen naturally. However, ice shelves act as buttresses holding back glaciers flowing down to the coast. The collapse will make the area more vulnerable to climate change.

      Larsen A and B ice shelves, which were situated further north on the Antarctic Peninsula, collapsed in 1995 and 2002, respectively. This resulted in the dramatic acceleration of glaciers behind them, with larger volumes of ice entering the ocean and contributing to sea-level rise.

      Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-...

    4. Re: Well, damn by ClickOnThis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The issue is not whether elected leaders should protect the interests of the nationals of their country. Of course they should.

      The issue is whether they should be comfortable campaigning with slogans that echo a tragic part of world history.

      World prosperity is not a zero-sum game. All nations need to protect their interests, but they also need friends, allies, and trading partners. And to keep them, it helps not to act like a dick.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    5. Re: Well, damn by Sumus+Semper+Una · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I mean, what exactly is wrong with our elected American leaders saying they are going to put forth and defend American interests first and foremost when dealing with the rest of the world?

      You seem to be implying that American leaders were not already trying to gain advantages for American interests wherever possible or mitigating the negative effects when it's not possible. We'll just have to differ on our world view on that point.

      Isn't that exactly what we elected them to do?

      Maybe you did. Most people actually have a wide range of issues that they care about. Some of them even care less about America's role on the world stage than they do about the problems in front of them here and now that have nothing to do with the rest of the world. The point is, there are a lot of reasons to vote for a representative. Not everyone sees America throwing its weight around as a #1 priority.

      I mean, nothing wrong with cooperating and helping out other countries in the world, as long as it doesn't go against US interests and put us on the short end of a deal.

      Imagine you're in a village of 196 families. Some of them are bigger than others. Some are richer than others. Some have stronger people than others. You start wondering, why doesn't your family only ever deal with other families so long as you don't get the short end of the deal? Sounds reasonable right?

      Pretty soon, everyone realizes what you're doing and stops dealing with you altogether. Why should they? The only way you ever agree to anything is when it's absolutely even (doesn't happen very often) or you're getting more than they are. In which case, why deal with you at all when there are other options?

      Seriously, other countries out there are working hard for their own interests (see China especially these days, their building of "islands" and claiming more and more of the sea away from their mainland is a prime example)....yet so many in our country seem only too happy to give any advantage or thought to gaining advantage away.

      How is China's island building and Russia's de facto annexation any different than what you want America to become? That's a certain pathway to war. If you want to take exception to nationalistic expansion from your enemies you'd sure as hell better have a moral high ground to speak from if you expect anyone to listen to you.

      I missed it...when exactly did it become wrong to want your country to come out on top when dealing with the rest of the world?

      Around the same time people realized that being a constant asshole to your neighbors isn't an effective long term strategy.

      The world is a contest...every other country out there plays it to win, and yet, there seems to have somehow in recent years, been a generation of US citizens that don't perceive this...they think the world is a warm and friendly place with everyone giving their fair share, holding hands and singing Kumbaya (sp?)....

      Or maybe, juuuuust maybe, the world is more complicated than "I must beat everyone totally, all the time, and if I don't then I lose!" I mean, seriously, if you really truly think that the purpose of every country is to try to rule the entire world, then there would have been a nuclear holocaust as soon as any side armed with nuclear weapons realized that they could not achieve that goal.

      Was it about the same time it seems it became just plain wrong to be born a white male?

      As a white male, I have experienced no personal discrimination or recrimination. Quite the opposite, really. Methinks thou doth project too much.

  2. So What by sexconker · · Score: 5, Funny

    So a chunk of ice falls into the ocean. It'll cool the ocean a bit. I though you wanted it to be colder. Make up your damned minds!

  3. Re:Even more fake news by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because of course the big money is in being a scientist. All those CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CTOs and institutional shareholders, why they're basically peasants! Poor dears, won't someone think of the Billionaire Oil Barons?

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    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  4. Always look on the bright side of life by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everyone is always so down on Global Warming. Why doesn't anyone ever look on the bright side of things? After all, once the icecaps and glaciers all melt, think of how much better the world will be:

    1) Florida will be completely underwater. Not just Miami, but the "Florida Man" parts too.
    2) So will large chunks of the Middle East (though admittedly they'll probably be a bit more worried about the heat than that).
    3) Lots of currently undervalued inland property will become valuable beachfront areas. And without having to fire nuclear missiles at the San Andreas a la Superman!
    4) Huge swathes of inhospitably cold Canadian land will be sunny, warm, and liveable, which will be good news for those of us fleeing the future American hellscape.
    5) Make the Great Lakes Great Again - there will be a new Great Lake, right about where Montreal currently is. (French Canadians underwater? Bonus!)

    Sure, there will be some downsides. The Netherlands will wind up completely underwater, though I'm sure they can build a wall to keep the North Sea out, since they've been doing it for decades already. Install some tidal power generation, and they can even make the North Sea pay for it, too!

  5. Re:Even more fake news by XXongo · · Score: 4, Informative

    National Review is not a good source for science information, sorry-- it's an opinion magazine-- and National Review quoting a story from the Daily Mail is really not a reliable source-- Daily Mail is the kind of tabloid that gives the word "tabloid jounalism" its name.

  6. Re:Even more fake news by hey! · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually it's just the National Review passing along an "expose" by The Daily Mail. This is the same "newspaper" that claimed a 63 year-old woman became pregnant with baby squid after eating calimari.

    If you look into the objections, they're rubbish. The paper in question (Karl et al) is part of an ongoing back-and-forth by scientists over the degree of warming post-1998, so if it is part of a conspiracy by the scientific establishment to cover up contrary data it's a pretty lame conspiracy because it let both sides of the data out.

    As for Karl et al, it's a highly technical paper, but to cut to the chase the reason it has the denialists in an uproar is that it proposes a method that erases their precious, cherry-picked post '98 "hiatus". That hiatus didn't exist if you smoothed the data or chose any other starting point but the record setting '98, and it was was blown away by 2014-2016 anyhow. So this is beating a dead horse that was barely alive to begin with. The method in the Karl paper also suggests that the rate of warming since the early 20th C is actually lower than previously believed. Alarmist!

    The thing about this kind of bullshit response is that the attraction of a conspiracy theory is that it's quick and easy to understand, as long as you don't try to square it with actual events. People find CTs credible because it says the people bearing bad news are out to get them.

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  7. Re:Even more fake news by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There would still be climatologists whether AGW was real or not. The value of tracking regional and global climate is pretty high. The actual fact is that it has been know for over a century that increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere would inevitably lead to more energy being trapped in the lower atmosphere. You can make all the claims you want that climatology is some of grant boon, but the fact of the matter is that is how most research works, particularly basic research.

    Do you have an actual critique of the science, or is this just yet another "scientists are warped and twisted". You do understand that grants aren't just handed out based on the topic heading. Grant applications actually require researchers to make a strong argument for why the grant should be made. You act as if it is some sort of popularity contest, but I get it, you despise the research in question, hate the results it provides, but can't really debunk it, so it's time to attack the scientists. I fail to understand how defunding climate research will make human-caused climate change go away. When you're racing towards a brick wall, I know of no evidence that closing your eyes means you won't hit it.

    Grow up. The universe is what it is, and CO2 has the properties it has, and not studying those properties and there large scale effects won't make those effects go away. Reality cannot be argued away.

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    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  8. There is no AGW cabal by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "traditional" $100-$200 million? Traditional since when? Traditional since the 19th Century when CO2 was first recognized as a potential problem, or traditional since 1959 when it became clear that there was a global issue with rising CO2 levels? Or would that have been any time in the past two centuries when the fundamentals of atmospheric physics were being worked out?

    You're arguing against AGW, by using a political argument. If you want to argue that AGW is not a serious concern then you need to do it in the language of science, not allege some sort of cabal. Roy Spencer is still getting up and delivering contrarian screeds to Congress and being lead author on the sections of the IPCC report related to his specialty -- it's not like the opposing voices aren't being heard. It's that they're not persuasive in the face of the evidence. If you don't like what the science says, do better science. This is, really and truly, a meritocracy, where reproducible results are all that matter. We can prove it, because the consensus was *against* CO2-induced warming until the 1950s, and then everyone changed their mind and no one was fired. Because we didn't have jackasses like you trying to inject politics into a scientific topic by insisting that the entire field is comprised of avaricious liars. Honestly, this is just you being intellectually lazy. Go and look up the evidence for AGW. Go read about radiative transfer equations, the Stefan-Boltzmann law, the atmospheric window, carbon 14 ratios, and all the rest. When you do, come back and tell us what you think is wrong with *that*, not some irrelevant horseshit about some conspiracy of white-haired professors. The basics of AGW were worked out in 1896, and they have been supported since then by thousands and thousands of people working in cooperation around the globe since that time. We respect your right to disagree with the science; the whole point of science is to argue about models of reality. The rules of this game are mandatory and not up for debate: if you arguing against science with something other than empirical evidence, you are fighting reality itself, and you will lose. Now, do you have some novel observations on the nature of CO2 that you would like to share with us?

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    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:There is no AGW cabal by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Insults are also not scientific evidence, and you saying that something is so doesn't make it true. If it's not real, prove it to me, and tell me what's wrong with the science, even if that is, "something unexplained happens in step x and we need more research into y".

      I have a low tolerance for bullshit on this subject. I grew up in Alaska, and it is already ruined. It would be nice if there were any hope of putting things back to normal there, but unfortunately the science is unequivocal. So now you have burned down my home, lied about doing it, and insulted me for saying otherwise. I suppose that's only fair, but what are you going to do for an encore?

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.