The impending collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica has been all over the media the last couple of days.
Here's a video of the ice shelf collapse that was sent to us:
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I think scientists are
I think scientists are concerned most with the old ice melting. Although the sea ice levels might stay the same, more of it might be coming from old ice.
Old ice melting is certainly
Old ice melting is certainly a sign that the melt is going further and further each year. The disintegration of the shelf is also an indication that it is being eroded from below as warmer water circulates beneath it. On reading the press release from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) (here: http://nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.html), it is my impression that the scientists are most concerned with the loss of a "brake" of ice that has held back the glaciers by providing protection from the direct assault of the open sea. Should the Wilkin shelf disappear, any glacier thus exposed would start to deteriorate in the same way as the dramatic retreat that has been observed in Greenland over the past few years. That's when sea-level rise becomes an issue.
Fern Mackenzie
I tend to follow the larger
I tend to follow the larger scientific community, since I know very little in this field. To someone who is inexperienced, some piece of data might seem much more significant than it actually is.
To those in the field who disagree, it is a good thing there are people like you. To those not in the field who disagree, please consider the consequences if your instinct is wrong.
For those “scientific” arguments presented here:
The freezing point of water is 0 C only when it is pure. Also, cracks are not necessarily caused by thawing, but by temperature variations.
The margin of error regarding the receding ice has nothing to do with the whole of Antarctica!
The average temperature in Antarctica might indeed decrease, but the average says nothing of distribution. It is kinda like average GDP, which seems so useful, but it says nothing of wealth distribution.
“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.” (Bertrand Russell)
The global sea ice coverage
is growing, see this link:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
And it is even more obvious in the southern hemisphere:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg
All this after decades of catastrophic AGW.
Decades?
"decades of catastrophic AGW"
Do you have peer-reviewed citations for this statement?
Or is it strictly hypberbole being used to beef up a weak argument?
_Not_ growing
"is growing, see this link:"
Oh jeez. The overall trend in sea ice area is clearly downwards. Notice that the red line ("global sea ice anomaly") has started to touch the bottom of the graph only in recent years?
But in the denialist world, down is up, false is true, and dependence is freedom.
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Frank Bi, http://tinyurl.com/yrpnmd
"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce
Ice shelf
Hi
Sorry for my English but look carefully pictures...Something strange. It look that the ice (snow) as bean cut straight!(maybe Alien! or USA!):)
If you check other ice shelf, the ice don't collapse like this....i think it's a another story to make people scared of...And it's not the the first time the Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse so......Media still afraid people!" Look and analyze by yourself before believing anything!
Thanks!
Next on Weekly World News: Aliens Cause Global Warming
Weekly World News, you'll be missed.
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Frank Bi, http://tinyurl.com/yrpnmd
"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce
THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED
Video of boiling kettle proves Earth is melting:
http://tinyurl.com/yp4u5u
Denialist tactic
That might be some sort of devastating point if denialists aren't always trying to dispute climate models by making up their own toy "models".
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Frank Bi, http://tinyurl.com/yrpnmd
"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce
Too bad deniers won't see this
YouTube is completely useless for deniers since they always have their heads in the sand. Even with their eyes open (I hope the sand is not too gritty) they can't see what is happening all around them.
Ian Forrester
What Crap!
This is absolute and undeniable proof that the AGW hysteria industry is getting desperate.
Antarctica has gotten cooler in the last 30 years and has recently set records for Ice Extent.
This little iceacle breaking off is an absolute non-issue.
Here is a article that puts it in perspective.
Not that AGWers will even read it but....
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate
Oh and here is a map of the Active Volcanoesin the reageon that is the actual cause of the little break off.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/antarcticvolcanoes2.jpg
And the warming map showing the overall cooling.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/antarctic_temps_avh1982-2004.jpg
And here:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/surprise-theres-an-active-volcano-under-antarctic-ice/
What complete nonsense from gulable fools.
But completely predictable.......LOL
that's a keeper
Every once in a while we see a post of such pure denial, that it almost qualifies as a beautiful specimen worth preserving in a case.
"Antarctica has gotten cooler in the last 30 years and has recently set records for Ice Extent.", etc., etc.,
If Antarctica is becoming
If Antarctica is becoming cooler as you say, THEN WHY THE HELL IS IT MELTING AND THE AREA OF ICE DECREASING???
Informing you about climate science is like trying to nail a square peg into a round hole!
= Stephen said: = If
= Stephen said: =
If Antarctica is becoming cooler as you say, THEN WHY THE HELL IS IT MELTING AND THE AREA OF ICE DECREASING???
Don't panic Stephen! Breathe deeply. The Antarctica is a huge area with various climates. The interior is cooling and gaining ice mass while the Western Antarctica has warmed.
As to ice in the Antarctic, this graph is informative:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
The interior ice is
The interior ice is increasing in thickness, but the area of ice over the Antarctic continent is decreasing due to the melting and calving caused by warming temperatures. Can't you get this through your head?
Wrong again Paul
Paul S/G said: "The interior is cooling and gaining ice mass".
Don't you ever get tired of being wrong all the time? Why not write some thing that is right, just once in a while to fool us.
Go and read up on the data from the GRACE satellites to find out how wrong you (and all the other deniers) are.
Ian Forrester
What are you blathering on
What are you blathering on about Ian? East Antarctica has been gaining mass. You speak of the Antarctica like it is one climate. It isn't.
You are entitled to your opinions Ian, but please don't try and pass them off as fact.
How stupid can you be?
It is the total amount of ice in the Antarctic that is important since loss of ice there will raise sea levels quite considerably. Where it is happening does not matter it is the TOTAL loss which is important.
Of course such results do not support your biased views of reality. You are one sick person.
Ian Forrester
Please explain
Please explain how Ice melts when the ambient temperature is well below 0.
Is this some kind of special AGW physics?
I can't believe I am reading this crap from people I had thought were intellegent.
Guess I was wrong about that.
Here is a reference for temperatures in antarctica.
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/antarctica%20environment/climate_graph/vostok_south_pole_mcmurdo.htm
Will Science ever recover from this farce?
The ice melts during the
The ice melts during the Antarctic summer when temperatures in certain regions of the continent are actually ABOVE ZERO! (Hmmm, a novel idea. Ice melting when the temperature is above the freezing point!) The Wilkins Ice Shelf is near the Antarctic Peninsula, which is the continent's northernmost region. Also, temperatures often climb above zero along the coasts of Antarctica where the ice sheet isn't many hundreds or thousands of feet thick.
If you hadn't realized parts of Antarctica aren't completely frozen throughout the year, it's time you took an introductory atmospheric science class or read a textbook.
You are incorrect Ian. You
You are incorrect Ian. You cannot look at the Antarctica as one entity. It is several, each with different climate conditions and variables.
Secondly, you have to look at how much ice mass has possibly been lost, remembering that it is *only* the newer Grace measurements which support this belief. Even if the Grace measurements are definitive, the loss of ice mass is tiny, and possibly just a measurement error.
So pardon me if I don't work myself up into a self-righteous lather as you are wont to do.
"Even if the Grace
"Even if the Grace measurements are definitive, the loss of ice mass is tiny, and possibly just a measurement error."
Wrong. The Antarctic is losing 36 cubic miles (150 cubic kilometres) of ice each year. Hardly "tiny" or "just a measurement error."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11640662/
Paul, your calling this "tiny" is like calling the Empire State Building puny or Mount Everest short. Also, you and your ilk continue to declare anything which goes against your "denialist" message as having instrumental errors. Excuses, excuses. Just grow up and take your being wrong like a man!
Good, you coughed up a
Good, you coughed up a number Stephen. You said:
"The Antarctic is losing 36 cubic miles (150 cubic kilometres) of ice each year. Hardly "tiny" or "just a measurement error."
And how big is the Antarctic? It's 27,000,000 cubic kms..
So the question remains, can scientists precisely measure a 150 cubic km loss of ice mass out of 27,000,000? What is their margin of error? And please don't try and tell me there is no margin of error.
Even if accurate, the loss is tiny.
Accurate? You decide.
Paul S. wrote:
"So the question remains, can scientists precisely measure a 150 cubic km loss of ice mass out of 27,000,000? What is their margin of error? And please don't try and tell me there is no margin of error.
Even if accurate, the loss is tiny."
Good point, Paul. One would have to be exceedingly credulous to think anyone could accurately measure that volume accurately. The tolerance of even the best measurement techniques would render the accuracy of the desired measured value useless.
We're talking about 0.006% here! With such an infiniteslimaly small change, coupled with cummulative measurement errors, for all they know, the ice volume is actually increasing. Basic metrology.
I appreciate the
I appreciate the measurements that scientists are attempting to accomplish but rarely, if ever, are the measurements placed in their proper perspective.
If the population of Canada decreased by 150 people in one year, we would say the population is stable or, even more likely, that measuring Canada's population that precisely was not possible. If the Antarctic (presumably) loses 150 cubic km in one year, looming disaster is immediately predicted.
A hundred years at this rate
A hundred years at this rate would inundate all land within a half-foot of sea level. This rate, however, is going to accelerate with increasing GHG concentrations, which will lead to the rise in sea levels of maybe a metre. As 100 million people live within a metre of sea level, this will result in mass destabilization and a refugee crisis which will dwarf all the refugee crises in human history COMBINED.
Get your head out of your ass!
A hundred years at this rate
A hundred years at this rate would inundate all land within a half-foot of sea level.
Uh, I don't think so Ian.
At this rate, over 100 years, would raise sea levels by approx. 1.5 inches.
That's Stephen, not Ian
And I guess we'll find out, won't we? Or somebody will, as I doubt we'll still be around. But something tells me that the trend is going to be increasingly obvious as time goes by.
Fern Mackenzie
Unbelievable
You guys can't convince me that you are really stupid, blind and illiterate.
It is just against the odds.
The Antarctic ice mass has been growing for years.
And there is NO evidence of ANY melting of the ice at this site.
Hello!!!!! Ice DOES NOT MELT WHEN IT IS BELOW 0 Degrees.
Check the temps for that regeon.
Good Grief!!!! I had a much higher opinion of you guys before this sill farce.
att'n Troll & Paul S
Please refer to the joint press release from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder; the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), based in the United Kingdom; and the Earth Dynamic System Research Center at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Taiwan. Entitled Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegration Underscores a Warming World, this is the basis for all of the news stories currently doing the rounds. You may find it enlightening. See: http://nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.html
Fern Mackenzie
Go amnd do some reading on the subject
Troll said: "Check the temps for that regeon (sic)".
You are the one who is stupid, blind and illiterate. Go and read the latest reports on the information coming from the GRACE satellites. These reports show conclusively that the ICE MASS over the Antarctic is DECREASING substantially.
Ian Forrester
"And the warming map showing
"And the warming map showing the overall cooling."
How does a diagram which stops at 2004 tell us anything about what happened in 2008?
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Frank Bi, http://tinyurl.com/yrpnmd
"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce
Volcanoes and global cooling
Jennifer Marohasy and Anthony Watts are blaming it on an active volcano.
(Then again, denialists blame the Jan 2007--Jan 2008 temperature drop on "global cooling". The mind boggles.)
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Frank Bi, http://tinyurl.com/yrpnmd
"Al `Fat Al' Gore [is fat]" -- Harold Pierce
Want another laugh?
Some guy at a forum I visit is trying to pin it on a 5.8 magnitude earthquake, SE of New Zealand. It's about 4000 km away or so, but the real kicker is the quake was on March 17!