Huge Iceberg Breaks Off Antarctica

portlandatheist said:
Ben, Have you seen this:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/extremeice/

I recommend it for everybody, regardless of where you stand on the AGW issue. The imagery alone is worth the watch. To actually watch glaciers move via time lapse photography is amazing and to see what an incredibly dynamic system Greenland has become is like watching Geology occur in real time. I'm sure you would enjoy it if you haven't already seen it.
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Hmmm... No I have not. In fact I almost watched that feature today on Netflix. I think I shall.
 
I recall reading (sorry, no link) that one of the major destructive effects of global warming is that it will affect ocean currents. These currents, especially cold-water ones, strongly influence sea life and the influx of cold water is absolutely essential in bringing oxygen-rich water to the productive fishing grounds of the world. The resulting loss of such currents could result in worldwide famine especially for those countries that rely on the ocean to provide their protein.

Again, I don't have a source for this, but I don't think that this event is so trivial as some might portray it.
 
Arctic melt to cost trillions: report - ABC News (Australian ...
Arctic melt to cost trillions: report. Posted February 6, 2010 18:24:00. Arctic sea ice. The loss of Arctic Sea ice and snow cover is already costing the ..
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The cryopshere is critical to us and the biosphere....at this point it's merely a strong analogue marker for our intemperate nest fouling...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/06/2812229.htm
 
casebro said:
Okay, worst case scenario is that it drifts far enough north to cause some kind of unusual weather patterns. Note the "unusual", not "never before seen we're all going tot die".

Whatever the results, it is NOT going to change the climate, it is only transient, and will only move heat around, not cause more heat.

So, the effect is one thing, the cause is another. Did it break due to warmth, or did it break due because more coldness caused growth?

Hey, the last time an ice shelf broke off, some scientists were going to check the sediment under the shelf to see how often it has happened historically. Any news of that look-in-to? is it "Never ever happened before", or is it "Ho-hum, Happens every couple thousand years, no big deal" ?
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Yeah, that's sort of what I am wondering. It'd be particularly interesting if sediment showed break off during the MWP.

Let's see how this works.

Ice shelf breaks off. Unimpeded glacier moves a bit faster. Bingo! New Ice Shelf. Guess what? Sooner or later it's going to break off too.

Old ice shelf drifts away northward. Effect: warm water is cooled down as it melts, and much more sunlight is reflected off the planet from the surface of the detached ice chunk than if it was at the pole.

So it's "GOOD" that it broke off (Using Warmer Gaia level moralist judgemental styles).

:D
 
BenBurch said:
Ummm, I am guessing you did not read the article????

I am guessing you did not know that the danger is that it will stay in the immediate area?

I am guessing you did not know that the issue (though a stretch) is that it would mess with the formation of the flow deep, cold water which happens ONLY there and at two spots in the North Atlantic?
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I'm guessing you didn't read this ..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8538060.stm

"There are also a number of other locations of bottom water formation, however. So, it's unlikely that a large-scale sustained change of the order of magnitude required for a global climate impact will happen from this one event.
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Tricky said:
I recall reading (sorry, no link) that one of the major destructive effects of global warming is that it will affect ocean currents. These currents, especially cold-water ones, strongly influence sea life and the influx of cold water is absolutely essential in bringing oxygen-rich water to the productive fishing grounds of the world. The resulting loss of such currents could result in worldwide famine especially for those countries that rely on the ocean to provide their protein.

Again, I don't have a source for this, but I don't think that this event is so trivial as some might portray it.
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Yes, it is known as the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt, or Thermohaline currents. There are many articles and maps available through Google, as always.
 
In other news, elsewhere other icebergs are forming.
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Why don't we just hire a bot to make these standard answers for us?

If thread title includes AGW-related words, post
-something about Al Gore (then run derail.exe)
-something about ice regrowing elsewhere
-total misunderstanding about what a "trend" is ("no warming since XXXX!")
-something about AGW being great
/endif
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Why don't we just hire a bot to make these standard answers for us?

If thread title includes AGW-related words, post
-something about Al Gore (then run derail.exe)
-something about ice regrowing elsewhere
-total misunderstanding about what a "trend" is ("no warming since XXXX!")
-something about AGW being great
/endif
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Long ago and far away an AI guy and I looked at writing a usenet troll-bot. We never made it work well enough to fool ourselves, so we never let it loose on the world.

However, the art of expert systems has advanced, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that some of the people we see posting here are troll-bots.
 
I guess some marine scientist could make a good living by following the thing around and sampling the currents underneath it.

But, as i understand the basic physics, fresh water is lighter than salt water, whether frozen or liquid. So the ice berg is going to float. As it melts, the less dense fresh water with stay on top, until it gets mixed in. Then, as less dense salt water, it will still tend to stay near the surface. And the ocean in that neighbor hood is pretty cold too. So, a big pool of cold fresh water is going to ruin the climate - how?

Aaand, if a ten year long "no trend" period is considered weather, not climate, then wouldn't the ice berg's effects also be 'weather' instead of climate? Unless they last ummm, how much longer than ten years makes it climate? 150?
 
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This is such a non AGW story ..

Yes, a warming trend may have contributed to the birth of this berg .. However, by itself, this berg will have a negligible if any effect on global climate or weather ..

The Warmers just want to somehow spin it that way, as if they have to make stuff up in the absence of more compelling evidence...
 
casebro said:
I guess some marine scientist could make a good living by following the thing around and sampling the currents underneath it.
....
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Some Argo floats around the thing would be interesting...
 
r-j said:
A medium sized thermonuclear device could solve this problem.
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Doubtful. Ice is hard and resilient, and that is a big berg. I haven't seen any sea level shots yet but I'd bet it's at least a kilometer thick.
 
r-j said:
A medium sized thermonuclear device could solve this problem.
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People very often fail to grasp just how much energy it takes to melt ice on that scale, a single nuke wouldn’t even faze it.
 
DogB said:
Doubtful. Ice is hard and resilient, and that is a big berg. I haven't seen any sea level shots yet but I'd bet it's at least a kilometer thick.
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It's been reported to be 700-800 billion tons. That would make it about 250m thick by my calculations. (48km*39km area). I'm pretty sure an H-bomb drilled into it would do some damage. Not that it is necessarily a good idea.

One 40 megaton bomb releases 1,67*10^5 TJ, while the fusion heat of 800 billion tons of ice is 0,26 TJ (= 8*10^14kg * 0.334J/kg). Such a bomb would thus release enough heat to melt it all 642 times over!

On edit: Big mistake! The latent heat is 334,000J/kg. And so the bomb can only melt the iceberg 0,000662 times over; that is only 0.066% of it!
 
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Carefulplease said:
It's been reported to be 700-800 billion tons. That would make it about 250m thick by my calculations. (48km*39km area). I'm pretty sure an H-bomb drilled into it would do some damage. Not that it is necessarily a good idea.

One 40 megaton bomb releases 1,67*10^5 TJ, while the fusion heat of 800 billion tons of ice is 0,26 TJ (= 8*10^14kg * 0.334J/kg). Such a bomb would thus release enough heat to melt it all 642 times over!

Edit: Big mistake! The latent heat is 334,000J/kg. And so the bomb can only melt the iceberg 0,000662 times over; that is only 0.066% of it!
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That's thinner than I had assumed but still a lot of ice. With careful use of a large number of bombs you might be able to break it up some, but like you said, that’s a pretty antisocial solution to the problem.

ETA. Does anyone even keep 40MT bombs anymore?
 
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