Iceberg the Size of Delaware, Among Biggest Ever Recorded, Snaps Off Antarctica (marketwatch.com) 305
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."
It's Time... (Score:5, Funny)
To build a new, unsinkable, super cruise liner ship. At least four chimneys will be required.
Re:It's Time... (Score:4, Funny)
Now say that (Score:2)
with a Britannic accent.
If I had the Capital... (Score:2)
...I would send ships to that Iceberg and mine ice cube sized chunks and sell them as novelty items.
Host a party with Million Year Old Ice!
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The Chinese have boats with 4 chimneys, we must not allow a chimney gap!
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Three different sources, three different units (Score:5, Funny)
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No, it's completely frozen.
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Re:Three different sources, three different units (Score:5, Informative)
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-... [phys.org]
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How big is that in football-fields?
What do you mean, an American or European football-field?
Auuuugh...
Re:Three different sources, three different units (Score:4)
What about libraries of congress?
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Well that's because it's obviously growing!
No. It looks like it is growing slightly and slowly, but then reverses and shrinks.
It's breathing! It's alive. It inhales fresh air . . . and exhales Greenedhouses Gases.
This is why we need to kill it with Mechani-Kong as soon as he boots up!
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So everything is good.
This seems to all agree, and I'm not sure where the confusion is.
Shouldn't we be reporting in acres or square furlongs?
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At 2,200 sqmi it's relatively close to double the size of Rhode Island (1214sqmi). It also makes it about the size of Brunei (2226sqmi). It's larger than 33 countries. It's land mass is equivalent to the 19th smallest nations in area. Vatican City. Monaco. Nauru, Tuvalu, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Marshall Islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Maldives, Malta, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Seychelles, Palau, Andorra, Saint Lucia, and the Federated States of Micronesia
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Read closer. The size of Delaware is bigger than London and bigger than Madrid. The iceberg is the size of Delaware and bigger than London and bigger than Madrid.
The Delaware article at least gave something relatively close in size. The iceberg is also larger than a tube of toothpaste, which also isn't relevant or particularly helpful.
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Re:Three different sources, three different units (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Three different sources, three different units (Score:4, Informative)
I'll clarify it for you: it's 17,242.0571 Libraries of Congress.
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One could hollow out the Iceberg and then be able to place Libraries of Congress inside.
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The Guardian said it was the size of Luxembourg so that should clear things up.
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Luxembourg is the size of Delaware now?
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No. The old-imperial measurement of "Delaware" is roughly 2 and a half times the size of the more useful internationally recognized metric measurement of "Luxembourg".
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News.com.au said it was both twice AND four times the size of the Australian Capitol Territory ... in the same article.
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I firstly read about this in a Spanish newspaper claiming that it was bigger than Madrid. Afterwards, I found out in Twitter that it was bigger than London. And now I know that it is as big as Delaware! And the worst part is that I don't even have a reasonably accurate idea about how big it is! LOL.
I too have been introduced to new measurements today. Apparently, 1 Galway + 1 Delaware = 0.5 Wales!
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The Talking Head on the German news said "seven times the size of Berlin!"
Hmmm . . . I wonder if there is a mathematical limit as to how many descriptions in relation to size to something else can exist. In other words, we could know its size in relation to something else, but we still have no idea how big it actually is . . .
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That's easy...he said "football" not "soccer".
This is a US centric site you know....should be easy to figure out.
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Damn Americans using non-standard "Delaware" units of measure instead of a more civilized "Luxembourg" unit of measure.
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> reset the year count over to zero
We should currently count ourselves as in the year 12017... because human civilization is more or less 10K years old (a nice common zero point for all cultures that have moved beyond the hunter-gatherer stage), and tweaking it so the last 4 digits match the Gregorian makes for easy compatibility with most of the world.
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10K years old
...12K years old...
Fixed that for ya. I assume that you mean the end of the Wisconsin glacial epoch, give or take a Younger Dryas. Funny how human civilization rose during a period of intense global warming... (and the melting of an ice layer several kilometers think that covered most of Canada and much of the northern US at the time...).
Archeological studies suggest that there was a serious political conflict back then with the "whites" -- a combined ecological-political movement that opposed the (obviou
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It's 1.9674e+9 square Smoots [wikipedia.org]
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According to Wolfram Alpha, it's about 1.205 million football fields in size.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/i... [wolframalpha.com]
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I firstly read about this in a Spanish newspaper claiming that it was bigger than Madrid. Afterwards, I found out in Twitter that it was bigger than London. And now I know that it is as big as Delaware! And the worst part is that I don't even have a reasonably accurate idea about how big it is! LOL.
You think you have it hard, this article [news.com.au] says it is both twice AND four times the size of the Australian Capital Territory.
At least I know how big the ACT is but I still have no idea about the size of this iceberg.
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Same size as Lake Erie.
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Re: Three different sources, three different units (Score:2)
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But the most honest Trump claims there is no global warming. Here we are with a major emergency and a total idiot at the helm.
This is a major emergency in your view? And Trump's the total idiot? Not to mention, ice breaks off of Antarctica all the time. This may be the biggest recorded break, but that doesn't mean it is the biggest of all time. Our records of Antarctica are relatively short.
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It's a quarter the size of Wales, so now its clear :D
And now you're trying to get the Sea Shepherds involved in protecting an iceberg, aren't you? Wouldn't put it past those folks to run to the rescue -- but only if the Japanese were making scientific studies of it.
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That's the Imperial unit. The metric one is the Belgium.
1 Delaware = 21.13 Centibelgiums
now's Saudi Arabia's chance (Score:5, Funny)
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they've always wanted one.
There is an awful lot of water in that iceburg. That could make a big impact on their water needs. (or any other country that were able to harvest it).
Nothing to see here ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey look! The latest outrageous tweet. Keep chasing that like a dog chases the laser pointer dot.
Re:Nothing to see here ... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually in this case, its more emblematic than anything. From the BBC article:
http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc... [bbc.com]
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.
Of course they use Delaware for comparisons... (Score:4, Funny)
Why use Delaware? It's less taxing [google.com] than other states!
(add your own rimshot noise)
Strange measurement units (Score:2)
Please post these things in units that can be universally understood.
How big is it in football fields?
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Please post these things in units that can be universally understood.
They did.
For the imperialists, "2200 square mile" is a relevant unit.
For everyone else, "trillion metric-ton" is relevant. A metric ton is 1000 kg. At about 1kg per 1000 cc, that's 1e6 cc. A trillion (1e12) of those would be 1e18 cubic centimeters. About. Every metric user should immediately identify that kind of volume.
The only problem in combining the imperial with metric is that one is a volume and the other is an area. But let's play. 2200 square miles is about 5.7e9 square meters, if my math is rig
Units of the land explained for all (Score:2)
For all those people wondering what we're comparing the iceberg to. Apparently it's bigger than:
Madrid: 604km^2
London: 1572km^2
Luxembourg: 2586km^2
Twice the size of the Australian Capitol Territory: 4716km^2
*
Delaware: 6452km^2
Four times** the size of the Australian Capitol Territory: 9432km^2
* Size of iceberg actually slots in here.
** The twice the size and four times the size were both in the same article [news.com.au].
Forever? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
It is the use of words like this that make me wonder about the sanity of the people writing this shit.
The headline should be: Unfathomably large chunk of ice just broke off of an ice shelf in Antarctica.
Why would anyone care if the fucking coastline has changed? Forever. The universe is not a static place, coasts even less static than most. Why is the coastline changing forever even a part of this story?
I am sure such insanity is being promulgated for a reason. I have no idea if it is to drive me away from, or to, whatever mouthbreathing thing they are trying to push but I am weary of it.
Just provide facts. A VERY light touch of speculation of what it could mean is okay as long the writer specifically mentions it is speculation. It is almost as if we can't think for ourselves or something... or actively being prevented from thinking?
Remember, to convert to metric... (Score:2)
Double it and add thirty. So that's thirty-two metric Delawares.
Not caused by global warrming (Score:3)
At the end of the video we get "It was a natural event that had been anticipated for months and was not directly caused by climate change."
Putting this 'insignificant' piece of information at the end speaks volumes as to why people are tuning out MSM.
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As the glaciers melt and sea levels rise, coastal cities around the world will be flooded, and arctic wastelands will spring to life.Russia is an arctic nation, which will benefit greatly from global sea levels. Most of America's business and culture is near the sea, and will be devastated by sea level rise.
Not sure why this is rated "troll". Actually, global warming probably will be good for Russia. At least, will be good for large parts of Russia.
Global warming isn't bad for everybody. It will be bad for places close to the equator, and places with cities on or near the ocean. But that's not true of most of Russia.
The comment seem rather accurate.
(the second part, sarcasm about Putin and Trump, is not, however.)
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They might need less fuel for heating .... and that was it.
Vegetation, harvest etc. ist mostly bound by the shortness of the summer, not by temperature.
Plenty of roads are perma frost crushed rock roads. In muddy times they are hard to use. So the longer they stay muddy instead of freezing over again, the longer transportation is more difficult/slow.
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Vegetation, harvest etc. ist mostly bound by the shortness of the summer, not by temperature.
No. The "shortness of summer" is bounded by temperature, not sunlight-- basically, when the thaws occurs, and temperatures are above freezing overnight. This will happen earlier, and it will stay thawed later.
As for sunlight, after the spring equinox Russia gets more sunlight than more equatorial places, not less.
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This Glacier was over the water so there will not be any water rise from this. Actually there should be a very minute contraction of sea level from this glacier (Greenland and other glacier losses will probably offset this anyways so there will most likely be no noticeable sea level change).
Also next winter and probably the one after that in Antarctica, there will be more sea ice than normal because this amount of water melting will lower the salinity of the water and allow it to freeze at a slightly highe
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The logic is, if it can be tied to AGW, it is and is "Climate Change". If it doesn't fit AGW, it is "weather".
And if it is something we humans haven't seen before in recorded history, it is AGW, but only if it fits the narrative. Record Snow falls, never before seen before ... not so much. And Recorded history being ... about 200 years or so.
This is why it is hard to have rational discussions on the merits of AGW, causes and effects. The Greening Of Africa is another great example ignored. http://news.natio [nationalgeographic.com]
Re:Good for Russia (Score:4, Informative)
Worst drought in Africa since 1945.
http://www.africanews.com/2017... [africanews.com]
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.
Re:Good for Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's hard to have a have rational discussions on the merits of AGW when politicians toss snowballs around the senate as proof that climate change isn't happening.
The 5 hottest years on record have all been since 2010. 11 of the 12 hottest years have been since 2000.
Local cold snaps don't disprove that, can you point to any researchers who have claimed that climate change will prevent local cold snaps? The average temperatures speak for themselves, expect to boneheads and oil shills.
Don't want to hear it? Then you'll have to prove the work of a vast number of scientists working for a vast number institutes in a vast number of countries all wrong.
Oh and in case anyone feels the need to claim scientists are just protecting their research grants, the only reason this research is needed is because politicians are pushing back on the findings. If the world had acted on carbon emissions in the 80s like it did on CFCs then there wouldn't be the need for this research would there?
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There were relatively easy alternatives to CFCs. Not so much for carbon emissions. Other than just not existing.
Re:Good for Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
The 5 hottest years on record have all been since 2010. 11 of the 12 hottest years have been since 2000.
Only if you accept adjusted temperature readings..
That would explain why some skeptics at Berkeley didn't accept them, made their own measurements and got the same results [berkeleyearth.org].
Re:Good for Russia (Score:5, Interesting)
The logic is, if it can be tied to AGW, it is and is "Climate Change". If it doesn't fit AGW, it is "weather".
The difference between weather and climate is time. What we know is the oceans are getting warmer and that's a change in climate. However, one of the outcomes of climate change is more extreme weather patterns. It's climate change regardless if it's good weather or bad weather because weather is a local phenomenon.
This is why it is hard to have rational discussions on the merits of AGW, causes and effects. The Greening Of Africa is another great example ignored.
Getting particular predictions incorrect does not diminish the point that the climate is changing. What we do know for sure is that the oceans are getting warmer at an alarming rate.
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However, one of the possible outcomes of climate change is more extreme weather patterns.
I don't mean to come across as pedantic, but the issue with "climate change" is that we don't know what will happen.
Will we see more powerful storms? Will we see storms where we don't normally? Will we see more storms that are less powerful? Will we see fewer storms that are more powerful? Will we see stronger winds? More moisture?
And what does that mean to businesses? I want to build a factory near this river. I build it based on the local building codes which are based on the climate. Now, the sno
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The logic is, if it can be tied to AGW, it is and is "Climate Change". If it doesn't fit AGW, it is "weather".
Well, yeah. Not certain the point that you are trying to make. These scientists you hate have said they can't tie this to global warming.
And if it is something we humans haven't seen before in recorded history, it is AGW, but only if it fits the narrative.
As noted before, the narrative here is a strawman made up in your head, so that you can slay it with your alternate facts.
Here is what a team member spokesman had to say
“Although this is a natural event, and we’re not aware of any link to human-induced climate change, this puts the ice shelf in a very vulnerable position. This is the furthest back that the
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And this is further evidence of the wisdom of AGW terraforming to push back further the most recent ice age, which actually will kill people, not mildly inconvenience their robots in 100-300 years.
This partial sarcasm awaits inevitable downmod.
Next ice age-- not soon (Score:3)
But the periodicity for glacial advance and retreat is 100,000 years-- the hundred year time scale you mention is a bit fast. A new glaciation isn't coming that soon.
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So, let's tow the iceberg to the Sahara, and use it to irrigate and cool the desert, and in the process bind up much of the water in an extension of water cycle to lots of surface area that currently does not participate. No? Just because it will cost a trillion dollars or so? When did costs become an important part of the climate narrative?
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I'll have to look back, but I think I read somewhere the Iceberg weighs a trillion tons. You're not moving a lump of ice that big. You can perhaps harvest some of the water by breaking it into chunks and transporting it back in tankers, but there's no ship on earth that could tow a lump of ice that big.
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I WAS kidding, right? Although SF (e.g. Oath of Fealty, Niven and Pournelle) speculates on towing medium sized icebergs for just this purpose (providing fresh water in a water-scarce zone). But yeah, an iceberg the size of Delaware, or whatever metaphor for a 50x40 mile chunk of area many meters thick you would prefer to use, would be rather expensive to move.
What will be interesting will be if it floats north. It's big enough to significantly cool a good sized chunk of sea surface as it melts, at a gue
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Guess what, humans move when climate changes. See ... "Great Land Bridge" for example. Because we have built huge cities on coasts to house large populations is OUR human problem. We'll pick up and move when the time comes. And LA and Miami will become great coral reefs teeming with life. You can see bad or good in just about everything ;)
I've no doubt humans WILL move. How many die first though before the people move? Stubborn folk stay behind in Eritrea and Ethiopia where there is little food. Places where crops will grow will change too... but how many lost harvests in Nebraska before people realize British Columbia is a better bread basket now
I will concur that LA and Miami becoming reefs will be a step forwards however. Perhaps we can start public works to push them in the ocean now, instead of relying on mother nature?
Re:Good for Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
Poor folk stay behind in Eritrea and Ethiopia where there is little food.
FTFY.
</truth>
Re: Good for Russia (Score:3, Insightful)
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Guess what, humans move when climate changes
No. Humans will move when wars fought over resource redistribution finally pushes them into moving.
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Humans migrate all the time, for reasons other than war. Resources become scarce, humans will war until the demand changes. The rich and powerful will always control the weak and poor, and it doesn't matter what political philosophy you embrace, this is true of all of them.
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People will move, and then they'll discover that where they want to move to already has people, and those people won't make way. Now what?
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Wow... First post is a global warming, the world is going to die, the sky if falling, Trump is killing us, "WOLF!" post...
Mr. Little, is that you? Chicken?
No, it isn't Mister Whoosh. Nothing more amusing than making your science denying, Trump loving FoxNews points on someone who is being sarcastic and agrees with your worldview. But thanks for playing, tovarish.
Don't buy land in Antarctica yet... (Score:4, Informative)
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."
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Technically, we're still in "the Ice Age". There's still a continent on top of the South Pole, and continents surrounding the North Pole.
What you probably meant was "since the last (previous) glaciation".
Note that is possible that the "next glaciation" started with the Year Without a Summer (1815), but was aborted by the increased use of coal since then. Apparently, glaciations start, not with extremely cold winters, but with summers that are cold enoug
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Libertarians should go to this iceberg and plant a flag on it as their own country! Sure it'll melt eventually, but they would've turned the place into a corpse-strewn hellscape by then anyhow.
And isn't that really the Libertarian dream? A corpse-strewn hellscape to call their own, with no rules and complete freedom for every survivor!
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For example
Stalin,
Mao
Pol Pot
and those nice itty-bitty tin pot dictators in Uganda, Zimbabwe, Venezuela