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Giant Ice Shelf Snaps
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Dec 29, 2006 04:25 PM
from the as-long-as-the-movie-doesn't-feature-sandra-bullock dept.
from the as-long-as-the-movie-doesn't-feature-sandra-bullock dept.
Popo writes "Satellite images have revealed that an ancient 66 square-kilometer ice shelf, the size of 11,000 football fields, has snapped off from an island in Canada's arctic. The Ayles Ice Shelf was one of 6 major shelves remaining in Canada's arctic and is estimated to be over 3000 years old. The collapse was so powerful that earthquake monitors 250 km away picked up tremors. Scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in 30 years and point their fingers at climate change as a major contributing factor."
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Overlooked (Score:3, Insightful)
How much is that in square furlongs? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
66 (square kilometers) = 630.89552 square furlongs
Re:How much is that in square furlongs? (Score:5, Informative)
About half the size of San Francisco
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Re:How much is that in square furlongs? (Score:5, Informative)
So a bit bigger than Bermuda [antor.org] (zoom out) [worldatlas.com] but a bit smaller than San Marino [aboutromania.com] (zoom out) [worldatlas.com]
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Ungrateful scientists (Score:5, Funny)
Happy Feet... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Happy Feet... (Score:5, Funny)
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less ambiguous units please! (Score:5, Funny)
NFL? Canadian? European kickball?
Besides, this is a nerds site. Don't make athletic references.
Volkswagen Bugs or Libraries of Congress would be more appropriate.
A 728,000 inch monitor (Score:5, Funny)
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Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in 30 years and point their fingers at climate change as a major contributing factor."
So what was the cause 30 years ago?
It's a fair question, yes? Like when I hear "such and such place recorded the highest temperature in 150 years this week!" I think "What caused the previous high 150 years agp?" My brain has a pesky habit of continually asking questions. All those X-Files episodes, I guess. Trust no one. Ideologues hate me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So the ice shelf is 3000 years old. That means 4000 years ago it was so warm that it couldn't form.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While you're asking good questions, add this one on: How is it that this thing is only 3000 years old? In geological timescales, that's nothing. The "blink of an eye." If it only just developed in the first place, why should we care that it's gone away again?
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
And in this case, the 30 years figure is because observations of this kind done with satellites has only been possible for 30 years, and any prior event would be impossible to measure.
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Well... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Critical thinking = idiocy? (Score:4, Insightful)
If someone tells you: "We haven't got a better football player for 20 years!", you think: "Mkay, so there *was* a better one before that!", no?
If there were no one better, the time mentioned would be longer.
It's only logical.
If you do not know when thermometers were invented, and do not know when satellites were invented... For what reason would you think in another way?
It's an incorrect way to write a statement in the first place - because it is misleading.
A more correct way to express this would be: "We have the highest temperature yet measured." or "It is the biggest chunk of ice broken loose we have observed with our satellites."
Yes, I am aware that the satellite part says "largest event in 30 years", the above is just an example.
I think that can be forgiven though - don't you?
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this a natural cycle? How long has this particular event been brewing? Have there been any other factors involved that can be discovered? These questions need to be answered before causes can be decided.
I am concerned about global warming, but I am also concerned about political motivations determining hypothesis, or special interest groups leaping on events and trumpeting them as being caused by their particular bugbear.
Such things do not good science make, and we need good science to get to grips with the causes of these events, lest we wander too far from the truth of it.
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:How much evidence do we need? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many vast Ice sheets have cracked recently? I haven't heard of many. This may be a natural event, it's certainly on a scale we are not normally accustomed to envisaging. To definatelly point to a cause for a thing, it must be seen more then once, preferably many times. What if, for instance, Ice sheets crack constantly? Until the 19th century there was little interest in keeping an eye on Ice in the arctic, that's not much time for events on such a large scale to be observed.
Ice is melting all over the arctic it seems, and there are tentative links to global warming. However no-one has proven that these are not natural events slightly speeded up.
I'm not interested in getting the facts from whatever group can shout the loudest, or who succeeds in worrying the most people, I'm interested in knowing the precise cause, or combination of causes, before resorting to being scared to voice a variant opinion.
This is aside from my views on pollution. Even if it weren't allegedly messing with Ice sheets I'd still think pollution was a bad thing. I am very wary of jumping to conclusions though.
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Re:How much evidence do we need? (Score:5, Informative)
How many vast Ice sheets have cracked recently?
I believe that the Larson A and B ice sheets, in Antarctica, broke up within the past decade.
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can I take a shot. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think I see where your going with this ie. is it a new event or just a re-occuring event. I'm a guess and say the first. You figure 30 years ago the ice shelves/glaciers were as much as twice as big as they are now. It all comes down to proportion. let say 30 years ago ice shelves represented about 500 square miles of area (ficticous number) this number proportionally wasnt' much. now lets reduce the total square footage of ice sheets by half, then break of the same amout. Yes it's the same as 30 years a
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a fair question, yes? Like when I hear "such and such place recorded the highest temperature in 150 years this week!" I think "What caused the previous high 150 years agp?" My brain has a pesky habit of continually asking questions.
The problem is, you need to ask the right questions - you are asking the wrong ones. What matters is not what caused an area of ice to break off 30 years ago. The correct question is: "How much faster is the ice breaking off now than then?" Just because it has taken 30 years for an area to exceed the previous record, does not mean that no ice has been breaking off since.... in fact, warming might might mean that smaller pieces break off more often, explaining the long time to break the record!
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Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
What else does it mean? WARS. Lots and lots of wars. Wars almost always are about resources, and shrinking resources and accelerating ecological catastrophe means mankind goes apeshit. Hell, we've just killed 600 thousand people just to control the oil spigot to Asia. Imagine what people will do for livable land and a water supply. Hell, water holes worldwide are being PURCHASED by American speculator right now -- Enron was big into water supply futures before the bastards went dead, but others took their place. Raw capitalism may ignite war long before real changes occur, because the truly evil men in this world will start charging fortunes to access water supplies around the world. We're gonna need a really big army to keep off all the people who are going to want to kill us.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why I should be a highly paid spin consultant. (Score:5, Funny)
The implication is that 30 years ago there was a larger event. So if a smaller sheet of ice broke off now than the one from 30 years back, doesn't that mean the problem is going away?
11,000 football fields? (Score:5, Funny)
11,000 Football field (Score:3, Funny)
Re:11,000 Football field (Score:4, Informative)
A football field is 58000 square feet x 11000 = 638000000 square feet for the iceberg.
Rhode Island is about 584524 football fields.
So the iceberg is about 1/53rd of the size of Rhode Island.
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TERRORORRISTSS (Score:5, Funny)
Canada should totally start rebuilding that ice shelf just to show those terrorists that NOBODY messes with Canada, eh?
Al Gore (Score:4, Funny)
3000 years old... (Score:5, Funny)
Been There Done That (Score:5, Informative)
http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic39-1-15
In 1984 this study was done in Canada. The first page kind of says it all.
" Between 1959 and 1974 a total of 48sqkm calved off from Milne and Ayles ice shelves. In addition, the Ayles Ice Shelf moved about 5km out into Ayles Ford"
Not quite 66 sqkm but close. And it sounds as if the shelf broke off rather recently within a few decades, and somehow reattached itself. No mention of that in the story, but there is a significant emphasis that the ice is 3000 years old and ancient. Making it seem as if this has been the same for 3000 years. Next at the bottom left of the first page.
"The largest observed ice calving occurred at Ward Hunt Ice Shelf (just north of Ayles) where almost 600SQKM, broke off between 1961 and 1962.
Re:Been There Done That (Score:4, Informative)
Those historical figures are for small bits or simple melting. They aren't for large blocks the size of this one popping off.
" Between 1959 and 1974 a total of 48sqkm calved off from Milne and Ayles ice shelves. In addition, the Ayles Ice Shelf moved about 5km out into Ayles Ford"
"The largest observed ice calving occurred at Ward Hunt Ice Shelf (just north of Ayles) where almost 600SQKM, broke off between 1961 and 1962".
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Where was that? (Score:4, Insightful)
At the north pole, isn't every direction south?
Its all about perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
Or 1/50th the size of Rhode Island
Which one seems bigger to you?
Re:Non Global-Warming Activity (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Non Global-Warming Activity (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Non Global-Warming Activity (Score:5, Informative)
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Geography lesson (Score:5, Funny)
I agree with you that the tequila is what makes a good Margarita, but you are wrong about your crap. Penguins do not frequent the same ice as polar bears. Repeat with me, polar bears are in the North, penguins are in the South. Not, they do not meet at the tropics.
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Re:Drinks all around! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While it would be absolutely foolish to dispute the reality of global warming, many of the arguments for it actually being human induced are somewhat specious, simply because global temperature records do not go back for enough to make a statistically meaningful analysis of the cause.
I'm not saying that we aren't the cause, but before the last ice-age this planet was a whole lot warmer than it is right no
Re:A river in Eygpt (Score:4, Insightful)
Should be 70 million tons of CO2 a day. But I'm sure it's the sun "surging" or something. Let's organize a space mission to toss giant ice cubes into the sun!
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Re:Because we all know (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:I can't wait..... (Score:4, Informative)
That is not the point, global warming is a fact, global warming is the cause of melting ice, global warming is the cause of warmer oceans. That is not what is being contested.
What is being contested is the cause of global warming. There are two podiums here, one is for arguing the cause is man made, the other is for arguing that it is a naturally recurring event.
The first has little evidence to support it other than (slightly) higher co2 levels in the atmosphere. The second of which has strong evidence recorded in, what else but the ice itself as well as in fossil records.
You cannot argue that there have been global warming events in the past but you can argue that man couldn't have been the cause then.
So I guess we are in agreement? Global warming is a CLEARLY OBVIOUS FACT.
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Re:I can't wait..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh wait - it wasn't the LEFT that did that, was it? It's the extremes that are the problems. True liberals and true conservatives both care deeply about personal liberty.
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Re:I can't wait..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Extremists are extremists.. plain and simple.
The only difference is which liberties they want you to surrender & why.
To be fair, sometimes they ask you to do it for the common good
and not because of some boogeyman.
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Re:I can't wait..... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have to mention that realclimate "debunked" the global cooling myth. It was never considered as a mainstream scientific belief, it only existed because of the popular press. The press gets most things wrong, can't distinguish between global dimming and global cooling. As for Nuclear Winter - thats the least of our worries if that many nukes were to be detonated in order to either cause an effect or not cause like that. It is a doomsday scenario, quite unlike global warming.
I have for a long time realised that categorizations like left or right don't make sense in the case of 80% of the population, especially across countries. Some of my ideas for an optimal society have socialist touches, but I also believe that personal liberties are not contradictory with them, quite the opposite. Even though the classification is quite flawed, I have to add that most of the civilized world is "extreme left" compared to the USA. Facts have a liberal bias and all that.
Anyway, back to the topic. Global warming is not the popular opinion. Or if it is, it is irrelevant. It is the peer reviewed mainstream scientific consensus. Science is powerful, and self checking. Many scientists have tried to falsify the conclusion that global warming is happening, but didn't manage to, thus we accept it as our standing theory in relation to the projected temperature change of the planet. That's how science works, by testable theories.
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Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, we weren't. That was simply media misreporting of recent discoveries of the timings of ice ages.
Seriously, if we had an event of this size a mere thirty years ago, it obviously isn't the one-of-a-kind end-of-the-world-in-twenty-years event the media is portraying it to be. What is the frequency of such events?
That doesn't matter. What matters is the overall frequency of all events which indicate melting. The frequency is high, and increasing. Within my lifetime (if I have a long life) the Artic will be free of ice in summertime. Will you still be doubting global warming even then?
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