Iceberg the Size of Delaware, Among Biggest Ever Recorded, Snaps Off Antarctica (marketwatch.com)

A giant iceberg about the size of Delaware that had been under scientists' watch has broken off from an ice shelf on the Antarctica Peninsula and is now adrift in the Weddell Sea. From a report: The 2,200 square-mile, trillion metric-ton section of the Larsen C ice shelf "calved" off sometime between Monday and Wednesday, a team of researchers at Swansea University's Project MIDAS has reported, citing imaging from NASA's Aqua MODIS satellite instrument. Scientists have tracked the crack for more than a decade and they warned in June that the section was "hanging by a thread." Its break, from Antarctica's fourth-largest ice shelf, changes the border shape of the peninsula forever even though the remaining ice shelf will continue to grow. "The iceberg is one of the largest recorded and its future progress is difficult to predict," said professor Adrian Luckman of Swansea University, lead investigator of the MIDAS project. "It may remain in one piece but is more likely to break into fragments. Some of the ice may remain in the area for decades, while parts of the iceberg may drift north into warmer waters."

Comments

Re:Three different sources, three different units

[Tablizer]

I'll clarify it for you: it's 17,242.0571 Libraries of Congress.

Re:Three different sources, three different units

[avandesande]

According to phys.org--

It created an iceberg of about 5,800 square kilometres (2,200 square miles), with a volume twice that of Lake Erie, one of the North American Great Lakes.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-...

Re:Good for Russia

[mspohr]

Worst drought in Africa since 1945.
http://www.africanews.com/2017...
Worst among the countries are Somalia, South Sudan, and Nigeria in West Africa who are part of the more than 20 million people estimated by the United Nations to be facing severe famine and starvation in the world.

Don't buy land in Antarctica yet...

[XXongo]

Don't forget about Antarctica - it will become an earthly paradise as global warming takes effect.

Probably not. Average temperature of Antarctica is -70F. Average high is -49.

It will take more than the few degrees of warming we can produce with greenhouse effect gasses to make that "an earthly paradise."

Re:Nothing to see here ...

[citylivin]

"Nothing to see here folks.. Move along."

Actually in this case, its more emblematic than anything. From the BBC article:

"What is the significance of the calving?

In and of itself, probably very little. The Larsen C shelf is a mass of floating ice formed by glaciers that have flowed down off the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula into the ocean. On entering the water, their buoyant fronts lift up and join together to make a single protrusion.

The calving of bergs at the forward edge of the shelf is a very natural behaviour. The shelf likes to maintain an equilibrium and the ejection of bergs is one way it balances the accumulation of mass from snowfall and the input of more ice from the feeding glaciers on land. ...

But Larsen C today does not look like its siblings. Prof Helen Fricker, from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told BBC News: "The signs we saw at Larsen A and B - we're not seeing yet. The thinning we saw for Larsen A and B - we're not seeing. And we're not seeing any evidence for large volumes of surface meltwater on the order of what you would need to hydro-fracture the ice shelf.

"Most glaciologists are not particularly alarmed by what's going on at Larsen C, yet. It's business as usual.""

http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

Obviously its great to have massive events like this to draw attention to the cause, and keep climate change at the front of peoples minds, but it seems like this isnt that big a deal. It isnt raising sea levels or single handidly causing giant problems by its calving alone.

Just part of the program these days.