Iceberg From Antarctica Drifting Towards New Zealand

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I find this story very interesting. These hundreds of icebergs may be dangerous to maritime traffic. The one on the photo is huge!
Most ships are not equipped to encounter an iceberg dead on... Wonder if we will see more of these in other parts of the world. The Antartic is melting pretty fast, so as the Artic area.

Link to story

reply to post by lagenese


There are already threads discussing this here and here
I'll re post from those threads:

Originally posted by Curious and Concerned
As far as the OP goes, this is certainly nothing remarkable or unprecedented. A few years ago in 2006 we had a large iceberg visible off the coast of New Zealand (where I call home

).

Iceberg off New Zealand becomes tourist mecca

This iceberg became a tourist attraction, with people flying out to it and landing on it in helicopters. Quite a novelty, really.

I'd also just like to point out an error in the news report from the above link. Upon reading I noticed this. This is the opening paragraph.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - An iceberg has been spotted from the New Zealand shore for the first time in living memory, drawing tourists via helicopter and scientists who are trying to determine where it and several other giant chunks drifting in the country's waters originated from.

Then it goes on to say...

Williams said the last time an iceberg was visible from the New Zealand shore was June 1931.

I guess they don't classify 1931 as within living memory. But the article does mention that scientists say it is impossible to attribute the iceberg to global warming.

So this recent iceberg is barely half way to the position of the iceberg from 06, but I can just see it being attributed to global warming by some.

Although since then, it appears the large iceberg has broken into many smaller ones. They probably won't last too long, as we are almost into Summer here. Beautiful day here in the Bay of Plenty today (won't be online too much )

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!!!!!1111onez

THIS IS JUST A PLOT BY OBAMA TO ENSLAVE US ALL WITH NAZI HIPPIE TERRORIST COMMUNISM!!!1

HE PROBABLY HIRED AL GORE TO CHIZEL THESE ICEBERGS OFF ANTARCTICA TO FOOL US ALL THAT GLOBAL WARMING'S REAL!!! BUT WE ALL KNOW IT'S A PLOT BY THOUSANDS OF SCIENTISTS TO FOOL US ALL INTO TAXING OUR CARBON THAT WE BREATHE AND FART OUT CUZ WE'RE JUST CATTLE TO THEM!!! OMGZ NWO!!!!!111


But in all seriousness...
This must be quite a surreal sight for the people living there, especially sailors getting freakin ICE-BERG warnings in the area! Probably thought they'd never see the day...

Although the causes of such an event are regrettable, it'd still be fantastic to witness such a thing in person.

Looks like the last time NZ saw icebergs was 2006, then 1931 before that, and then the last ice-age before that, hah. It's interesting how ice-bergs are sort of a warning sign for danger- whether it's to ships, for a coming ice-age, or symptoms of rapid global warming.

Looks like New Zealand's being turned into a cool drink of water. Sucks they don't get to choose between crushed or cubed...

Here's a good video of it:

reply to post by Curious and Concerned


Thanks! i made a search and could not find anything. Guess i'll have to search a little deeper next time. Thanks for the added data.

Originally posted by NoHierarchy
Looks like the last time NZ saw icebergs was 2006, then 1931 before that, and then the last ice-age before that, hah. It's interesting how ice-bergs are sort of a warning sign for danger- whether it's to ships, for a coming ice-age, or symptoms of rapid global warming.

I thought I'd point out a few relevent points. Firstly, this recent sighting is not from New Zealand, but well South of here.

Secondly, the South Island, especially the southern end is sparsely populated (even more so before the 1900's), so it is unlikely that there would be many sightings, even if these were a regular occurence.

Icebergs break off of Antarctica frequently, warming or not. As precipitation (snow/ice) on the mainland builds up, it has to go somewhere. And that somewhere usually ends up going towards the ocean to eventually break off.

Blame icebergs on CO2 if you want, but I can assure you those claims are entirely unsubstantiated, but feel free to prove me wrong.

Originally posted by Curious and Concerned
I guess they don't classify 1931 as within living memory. But the article does mention that scientists say it is impossible to attribute the iceberg to global warming.

So this recent iceberg is barely half way to the position of the iceberg from 06, but I can just see it being attributed to global warming by some.


Although since then, it appears the large iceberg has broken into many smaller ones. They probably won't last too long, as we are almost into Summer here. Beautiful day here in the Bay of Plenty today (won't be online too much

)

Well, you'd have to be over 80 years old to have witnessed the last iceberg... so for the vast majority of people, it's not living memory. But yeah, someone in NZ might be alive that saw it...

This iceberg can definitely be attributed to global warming. The warming of the Arctic/Antarctic ice caps is accelerated more than the rest of the world. This points directly to a greenhouse effect rather than any kind of solar output or other natural cycle. The source of these recent icebergs was a large shelf breaking off of Antarctica in 2000-2002. That was a HUGE ice shelf, and those things don't just break off without something like global warming to give em a nice hefty push into the ocean.

Definitely not a normal occurrence, which is exactly why people are flocking to see it.

reply to post by NoHierarchy


I have responded to you on this thread here since this was the original thread for this topic. No point having 3 separate threads on the same thing.

Cheers

and they say global warming is melting the ice faster? wouldnt this huge iceberg have melted already? stupid scientists think we wont notice!