Ice shelf about to break away from Antarctic coast

source

That reminds me of the movie "The day after tomorrow". I have no doubt that this event would create all kinds of problems with the Atlantic ocean.
The amount of fresh water could disrupt the temperature of the waters, for example, it could become much colder...
Any expert advice on this would be interesting.


[edit on 4-4-2009 by teklordz]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/05ccc09f1b22.jpg[/atsimg]

Here the picture of the Wilkins Ice Shelf. It shows just how big the chunk is.

A little bit of climate change thrown in to my day. Interesting article.
The size of this Ice Shelf is mind boggling.


Warning: This poster does not believe in Human Caused Global Warming.

reply to post by teklordz


I really wish this would get more attention.

Yes, I know....there are multiple threads on this subject....but before you tell the OP about other threads, we should consider WHY there are so many threads popping up?

HERE's an observation.....if those who are online NOW at ATS do not live near a Coastal Area....then, they just don't give a whit if MSL rises...(MSL=Mean Sea Level).

Regardless....average Ocean levels are going to be, in Human terms, fairly gradual. What I mean is, barring any huge Storms....any rise in average water levels is going to be gradual.

Problem is, it is so gradual....it tends to sneak up on the unsuspecting...

Originally posted by weedwhacker
reply to post by teklordz

 

I really wish this would get more attention.

Yes, I know....there are multiple threads on this subject....but before you tell the OP about other threads, we should consider WHY there are so many threads popping up?

HERE's an observation.....if those who are online NOW at ATS do not live near a Coastal Area....then, they just don't give a whit if MSL rises...(MSL=Mean Sea Level).

Regardless....average Ocean levels are going to be, in Human terms, fairly gradual. What I mean is, barring any huge Storms....any rise in average water levels is going to be gradual.

Problem is, it is so gradual....it tends to sneak up on the unsuspecting...

I agree that it would be very gradual. This topic came up about 2 months back. The island was nothing but a big area of sand but was used as a boundry point for gas/oil exploration. It now no longer exist without any explaination.

Goes right along with what you are saying-

www.abovetopsecret.com...




Missing Mexican island fuels mystery


Missing Mexican island fuels mystery

www.spacedaily.com


Bermeja island in the Gulf of Mexico -- a strategic marker defining US and Mexican maritime and subsea rights -- has disappeared along with documents backing up a bilateral treaty on major oil reserves in the area, fueling rumors of a CIA plot.
(visit the link for the full news article)

This would match up perfectly to the WEBBOT predictions for this exact time in 2009.

Maybe coastal dwellers should pay attention.

Could you post the link to that webbot prediction? interesting twist to the thread. And this prediction may be linked to other predictions (not webbot)... I will search to see if i can find some...

Hmmm...disappears...?

An Antarctic ice shelf has disappeared -scientists
www.reuters.com...

WASHINGTON, April 3 (Reuters) - One Antarctic ice shelf has quickly vanished, another is disappearing and glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought due to climate change, U.S. and British government researchers reported on Friday.

They said the Wordie Ice Shelf, which had been disintegrating since the 1960s, is gone and the northern part of the Larsen Ice Shelf no longer exists. More than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square km) have broken off from the Larsen shelf since 1986.

Climate change is to blame, according to the report from the U.S. Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey, available at pubs.usgs.gov/imap/2600/B.

"The rapid retreat of glaciers there demonstrates once again the profound effects our planet is already experiencing -- more rapidly than previously known -- as a consequence of climate change," U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.

"This continued and often significant glacier retreat is a wakeup call that change is happening ... and we need to be prepared," USGS glaciologist Jane Ferrigno, who led the Antarctica study, said in a statement.

"Antarctica is of special interest because it holds an estimated 91 percent of the Earth's glacier volume, and change anywhere in the ice sheet poses significant hazards to society," she said.

In another report published in the journal Geophysical Letters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that ice is melting much more rapidly than expected in the Arctic as well, based on new computer analysis and recent ice measurements.

The U.N. Climate Panel projects that world atmospheric temperature will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius because of emissions of greenhouse gases that could bring floods, droughts, heat waves and more powerful storms.

As glaciers and ice sheets melt, they can raise overall ocean levels and swamp low-lying areas.

yet another, as if we didn't have enough of these

www.abovetopsecret.com... sa=Search

i'll simply re-paste a previous reply.

=======================================

how can a floating mass collapse?

it's just alarmist speak, aka. scaremongering. for every of these dire threats to survival, there are a dozen sources which either flat-out deny and contradict the GW party line or expose these warnings as absurdly exaggerated.

let me give you a few examples:

Satellites show overall increases in antarctic sea ice cover

Satellites Show Overall Increases In Antarctic Sea Ice Cove

West Antarctic ice sheet is thickening

then we have this gem:

Satellites Show Overall Increases In Antarctic Sea Ice Cover

Parkinson examined 21 years (1979-1999) of Antarctic sea ice satellite records and discovered that, on average, the area where southern sea ice seasons have lengthened by at least one day per year is roughly twice as large as the area where sea ice seasons have shortened by at least one day per year. One day per year equals three weeks over the 21-year period.

confirming link: visibleearth.nasa.gov...


The Tip of the Iceberg: Yet another Predictable Distortion

originally posted at www.abovetopsecret.com...

a long time ago.


Now on to these dire consequences of icebergs melting: from

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Long Lance
..
when it gets serious, the numbers plummet, take the following example:

www.sciencemag.org...

After a century of polar exploration, the past decade of satellite measurements has painted an altogether new picture of how Earth's ice sheets are changing. As global temperatures have risen, so have rates of snowfall, ice melting, and glacier flow. Although the balance between these opposing processes has varied considerably on a regional scale, data show that Antarctica and Greenland are each losing mass overall. Our best estimate of their combined imbalance is about 125 gigatons per year of ice, enough to raise sea level by 0.35 millimeters per year. This is only a modest contribution to the present rate of sea-level rise of 3.0 millimeters per year. However, much of the loss from Antarctica and Greenland is the result of the flow of ice to the ocean from ice streams and glaciers, which has accelerated over the past decade. In both continents, there are suspected triggers for the accelerated ice discharge—surface and ocean warming, respectively—and, over the course of the 21st century, these processes could rapidly counteract the snowfall gains predicted by present coupled climate models.

now, the total is supposed to be 3mm/a with 0.35mm being attributed to GW, taken from

www.abovetopsecret.com...

3mm in the open ocean, 0.35mm, that's what? 0.014" due to GW (estimated) wtf are you thinking anyways? that paper was peer-reviewed, btw.

i've litterally debated this topic to death and all i've seen are dire predictions, thinly veiled accusations (paid by big oil, and other ad hominem attacks) and a hidden agenda leaning towards social engineering. i won't go into details about Dutch refineries selliing their CO2 to greenhouses for $$$, i won't talk about cost-effective (in terms of air tax revenue...) CO2 scrubbers, because that ain't the discussed topic, is it? i'll leave that part to the readers who are of course free to use ATS search at their own discretion...

all i will say in closing is that you cannot expect a glacier to build up infinitely, it'll shed ice at some point. this need not be catastrophic, of course. the idea that human beings are responsible for every snowflake that falls in the drink is as baseless as it is comical.


from www.abovetopsecret.com...

seriously, was the winter too cold, so that we need remote (not to mention fabricated) catastrophies? besides, what do you epect from a melting glacier?

to a) melt
or b) break off

choose wisely.



===========================================


still clamoring about sea level rise?

i have few questions for you? which amount of rise has been predicted

in 1970?

in 1990?

2000?

today?

how did they match up? in all honesty, if they ever have to make a definitive statement, the figures given range from mm to cm. observation is naturally challenging, for several obvious reasons and if you kno what'S good for your thread, DON'T bring up sinking islands again.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

and

www.abovetopsecret.com...

sorry, but if you want to be scared, look in the proverbial mirror. you're only doing this as a rallying call so you can 'profit humanity' or whatever i wonder whom that includes and whom not

[edit on 2009.4.4 by Long Lance]

reply to post by Long Lance



LL....see, this an interesting concept BECAUSE....

Water ice....that may break of Antarctica....this is 'fresh' water ice.

IT will change the salinity off of certain parts of the Ocean....

Sure, it will be temporary.....but in the interim....what cause and effects may be entailed?

In the longer view, once Plate Tectonics are taken into account....the Continent now known as a 'Antarctica' will

the issue is that you've fallen victim to information overload. there were plenty of links in my last post, weren't there?

the overall mass of the Antarctic glaciers is reported to be increasing,

www.newscientist.com...

Net gain

Geologists have previously traced the landward retreat of the line where the base of the ice in West Antarctica meets the ocean. This has averaged 120 metres a year since the end of the last ice age. The studies had estimated the Ross Ice Streams region was losing 20.9 billion tons of ice per year.

But now Ian Joughin of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Slawek Tulaczyk of the University of California at Santa Cruz report a net gain of 26.8 billion tons per year. This represents about a quarter of the annual snow accumulation.

www.gsfc.nasa.gov...

www.theregister.co.uk...


iow, what are you talking about?

you just can't pick a few mechanisms in isolation and pull them out of your... hat when it suits you and expect a consistent model or even line of argument. cheap PR is just that.

reply to post by Long Lance


Lance, the research you are using is 7 years old and is based on data for a period over 10 years ago.

Nature Geoscience 1, 106 - 110 (2008)
Published online: 13 January 2008 | doi:10.1038/ngeo102

Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional climate modelling
Eric Rignot1,2,3, Jonathan L. Bamber4, Michiel R. van den Broeke5, Curt Davis6, Yonghong Li6, Willem Jan van de Berg5 & Erik van Meijgaard7

Top of pageLarge uncertainties remain in the current and future contribution to sea level rise from Antarctica. Climate warming may increase snowfall in the continent's interior1, 2, 3, but enhance glacier discharge at the coast where warmer air and ocean temperatures erode the buttressing ice shelves4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Here, we use satellite interferometric synthetic-aperture radar observations from 1992 to 2006 covering 85% of Antarctica's coastline to estimate the total mass flux into the ocean. We compare the mass fluxes from large drainage basin units with interior snow accumulation calculated from a regional atmospheric climate model for 1980 to 2004. In East Antarctica, small glacier losses in Wilkes Land and glacier gains at the mouths of the Filchner and Ross ice shelves combine to a near-zero loss of 461 Gt yr-1. In West Antarctica, widespread losses along the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas increased the ice sheet loss by 59% in 10 years to reach 13260 Gt yr-1 in 2006. In the Peninsula, losses increased by 140% to reach 6046 Gt yr-1 in 2006. Losses are concentrated along narrow channels occupied by outlet glaciers and are caused by ongoing and past glacier acceleration. Changes in glacier flow therefore have a significant, if not dominant impact on ice sheet mass balance.

www.nature.com...

Public release date: 2-Mar-2006

University of Colorado at Boulder

Antarctic ice sheet losing mass, says University of Colorado study

University of Colorado at Boulder researchers have used data from a pair of NASA satellites orbiting Earth in tandem to determine that the Antarctic ice sheet, which harbors 90 percent of Earth's ice, has lost significant mass in recent years.

The team used measurements taken with the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, to conclude the Antarctic ice sheet is losing up to 36 cubic miles of ice, or 152 cubic kilometers, annually. By comparison, the city of Los Angeles uses about 1 cubic mile of fresh water annually.

www.eurekalert.org...

Changes in West Antarctic ice stream dynamics observed with ALOS PALSAR data

Changes in West Antarctic ice stream dynamics observed with ALOS PALSAR data
Eric Rignot

Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA

The Advanced Land Observation System (ALOS) Phased-Array Synthetic-Aperture Radar (PALSAR) is an L-band frequency (1.27 GHz) radar capable of continental-scale interferometric observations of ice sheet motion. Here, we show that PALSAR data yield excellent measurements of ice motion compared to C-band (5.6 GHz) radar data because of greater temporal coherence over snow and firn. We compare PALSAR velocities from year 2006 in Pine Island Bay, West Antarctica with those spanning years 1974 to 2007. Between 1996 and 2007, Pine Island Glacier sped up 42% and ungrounded over most of its ice plain. Smith Glacier accelerated 83% and ungrounded as well. Their largest speed up are recorded in 2007. Thwaites Glacier is not accelerating but widening with time and its eastern ice shelf doubled its speed. Total ice discharge from these glaciers increased 30% in 12 yr and the net mass loss increased 170% from 39 ± 15 Gt/yr to 105 ± 27 Gt/yr. Longer-term velocity changes suggest only a moderate loss in the 1970s. As the glaciers unground into the deeper, smoother beds inland, the mass loss from this region will grow considerably larger in years to come.

Received 21 January 2008; accepted 10 March 2008; published 28 June 2008.

Citation: Rignot, E. (2008), Changes in West Antarctic ice stream dynamics observed with ALOS PALSAR data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L12505, doi:10.1029/2008GL033365.

www.agu.org...

reply to post by Long Lance


Long Lance, let's first clarify that I am not into this 'Doom and Gloom' of rising seas. I don't think everybody needs to run down to Walmart and buy their little arm floaties for their survival pack.

I also don't buy into 'Human caused' global warming. I buy into global climate change which is mother nature still at work just as she has done in the past. We have solid evidence of global climate changes happening all throughout our past. I agree we're going through a cycle.

But the issue is, we are going through a cycle. The melting of ice in otherwise cold regions and the cooling of temperatures in warmer regions is happening. In this present day and age, this is all new to us with our technology. Case in point is the 'Hole in our atmosphere'. What a crock, we didn't even know it existed until the 70's and then we saw that it moves,grows and shrinks. Bottom line is that it's always been there and who knows what it's done in the past.

As far as the 'island disappearing' goes, ther hasn't been any info on why. I can't find what the elevation was, but being nothing but a large sandbar, who knows how it disappeared. I was just stating that the rise in sea levels, which you also do acknowledge, may have been the culprit. But I must reilterate that all of this is just part of our earth living and breathing.

reply to post by melatonin


it may not be recent and i wouldn't be all that surprised if a modern chart featured a 'hockey stick' style presentation which wholly omits the data presented in the article(s).

you're going to Hansenize the following graph, too?

icecap.us...

let's see pack ice season increasing 1day/1year, documented net gain reported in 2002 (where's that elusive contemporary data again??), temp curves going the 'wrong' way but not being reported anywhere...


i'm supposed to buy into all of this? not even at gunpoint.

Originally posted by Long Lance
reply to post by melatonin

 

it may not be recent and i wouldn't be all that surprised if a modern chart featured a 'hockey stick' style presentation which wholly omits the data presented in the article(s).

Of course, Lance, that's the answer. The three studies are all the result of a conspiracy of scientists trying to pull a fast one. However, all the scientific data that you select is just fine, the fact the selective cherries also confirm your pre-existing conclusion is just a coinicidence.

you're going to Hansenize the following graph, too?

icecap.us...

Heh, Hansenize? lol

No need to, it's just the normal denier's cherrypicking. That measure is from one small area of a very big continent.

let's see pack ice season increasing 1day/1year, documented net gain reported in 2002 (where's that elusive contemporary data again??), temp curves going the 'wrong' way but not being reported anywhere...

i'm supposed to buy into all of this? not even at gunpoint.

I wouldn't expect you to buy anything, Lance. You have your conclusion, evidence need not apply.

Science that confirms Lance's biases = good and honest

Science that contradicts Lance's biases = bad, dishonest, false, and part of a conspiracy.

It wouldn't even surprise me to see antarctic sea ice increasing, lots appears to be falling away from the ice mass, lol. The sea ice is relevant, but the melting land mass of ice is most pertinent for obvious reasons. And as the ice shelves fall away, the land mass is next in line - and the research suggests that the land mass is melting and at increasing rates.

[edit on 5-4-2009 by melatonin]

Can I make some predictions here?

• The Wilkins ice shelf will break off and float away from the Antarctic mainland.
  
• The ice shelf will then melt into liquid water as it leaves the colder antarctic regions.
  
• The sea will not rise perceptibly despite this.
  
• Someone will come up with a 'scientific explanation' as to why sea level did not rise enough to make Florida disappear.
  
• Another ice shelf will be found to be about to break off.
  
• Everyone will panic because we're all going to die if it breaks off.

I give sea level 30 days from the breakaway (which should be imminent according to what I have been able to find out). Should sea level rise perceptibly during that time, I will concede that I was wrong and Global Warming is real and a dire threat that can only be fixed by implementing carbon Cap & Trade taxation in a handful of selected countries, thusly destroying the economy and making people into some sort of modern-day feudal slaves. I will bow to the superior intelligence...

...excuse me...

...sorry... as I was saying, the superior intelligence of Al Gore.

''''cough'... 'cough'...

...sorry... I'm OK, really...

Now, who will agree that if sea level does not rise perceptibly, they will stop arguing for carbon Cap & Trade and that mankind is the reason the planet is undergoing slight variations in average temperature? And admit that Al Gore and Jim Hansen are total buffoons who belong in a freak show as the 'Men Without a Brain'?

Anyone?

TheRedneck

Originally posted by TheRedneck
Can I make some predictions here?

• The Wilkins ice shelf will break off and float away from the Antarctic mainland.
  
• The ice shelf will then melt into liquid water as it leaves the colder antarctic regions.
  
• The sea will not rise perceptibly despite this.
  
• Someone will come up with a 'scientific explanation' as to why sea level did not rise enough to make Florida disappear.
  
  ...
  
  And admit that Al Gore and Jim Hansen are total buffoons who belong in a freak show as the 'Men Without a Brain'.

Hmm, yeah, I would guess those total buffoons already know that the ice sheet floats on water and will make no direct contribution to sea level rises.

They probably can also tell their UVass from the IRlbow's

reply to post by melatonin


The future problem of the ice shelf breaking off is what is behind the concern.

The shelf itself acts as a plug for the ice that is on land behind it. When the shelf goes, the "land ice" will have free passage to the sea. That ice can raise the water levels.

Where the Arctic is mainly "ice already in the water", the majority of Antarctica is "land-locked ice".

reply to post by melatonin

Hmm, yeah, I would guess those total buffoons already know that the ice sheet floats on water and will make no direct contribution to sea level rises.

Ah, I see someone has attained comprehension. Congratulations Mel.

So what we have is a large chunk of sea-based ice at the most northerly reaches of Antarctica breaking away in order to form icebergs. Now that you have acknowledged that the ice will not contribute to sea level rises, understanding that we have had icebergs floating north form Antarctica and south from the Arctic since the earliest reports of sea-going vessels, and realizing that as ice accumulates from snowfall it has to go somewhere, can we agree that this is probably not going to be a problem?

TheRedneck

reply to post by melatonin


my conclusion is that i'm not willing to bet the farm (or my lamps or any air tax for that matter) on what has been presented.

cherry picking is btw almost inevitable at the South Pole, because data is scarce anyway, as said

“This looks like a pretty good analysis, but I have to say I remain somewhat skeptical. It is hard to make data where none exist.

comment: hardly, as experience has shown

Trentenbach was his name, btw.

the issue here is that you have recent studies treating selected glaciers (cherries?) and i posted articles which are 7 years old and are more concerned with the overall ice mass. i think i made it clear in previous that measuring ice cap mass is far from trivial and therefore not really trustworthy either way. (can i keep my lamps still i like the mercury free variety) i just would expect that such data will not show up on front page climate indicator curves. too much averaging and extrapolation i presume.

thinking about it, it's probably much easier to erase data where too much existed....

The sea ice is relevant, but the melting land mass of ice is most pertinent for obvious reasons. And as the ice shelves fall away, the land mass is next in line - and the research suggests that the land mass is melting and at increasing rates.

pack ice is seasonal, no, i mean there is less carryover from the last year and it's less dependant on precipitation, therefore probably a better indicator of temperatures. disclaimer: not an end all be all indicator, but worth mentioning i believe.

i think i asked already, but what do you epect a glacier to do? to pile up indefinitely? it can either melt or calve and either way you're unhappy, what did you expect to happen? or is it that these particular masses of ice violated your personal speed limit? is that really reason enough to write us all a ticket?

=====================================

Originally posted by TwiTcHomatic
reply to post by melatonin

 

The future problem of the ice shelf breaking off is what is behind the concern.

The shelf itself acts as a plug for the ice that is on land behind it. When the shelf goes, the "land ice" will have free passage to the sea. That ice can raise the water levels.

Where the Arctic is mainly "ice already in the water", the majority of Antarctica is "land-locked ice".

the question is if it's a net gain or loss, isn't it? water (ice) is continuously transported onto the Antarctic continent, it has to leave sooner or later, who said that's supposed to happen the same way and not in waves?

[edit on 2009.4.6 by Long Lance]