Break Up of Antarctic Ice Shelf

Surely nothing is going on when melting in the Arctic is this last summer equal to the most extreme predictions for 2036, and Greenland is showing signs of major collapse. Also, any additional freezing area in the Antarctic can be accounted for by the increased interstitial distances as such sheets as are noted start to break away. The melting between such chunks leads to super chilled surface waters that then are more easily frozen, but will not have the thickness of previous ice. As has been repeatedly noted, it does not matter what tiny percent of the total ice these shelves represent, only the coastal distance that they span. As they break and move offshore, they allow major on land sheets to start moving at accelerated rates into the ocean, regardless of temperature. But just what is it that is causing these sheets of ice to break away after thinning to the point of lacking structural integrity. Could it possibly be that some overly warm water and/or air has affected these mammoth chunks of ice. Could it be that our records of Antarctic temperatures are thin at best and not widespread geographically.

And, just how much are we willing to bet on the idea that reducing our carbon footprint can have no effect on this trend. Can any of you find any problem with us doing things like reducing that carbon footprint and cleaning up our other depredations on our global ecosphere. Do any of you think that the things that we are doing to that ecosphere are currently positive.

Even if the majority of this change is due to natural factors, our contribution may be creating a tipping point that otherwise might not come for centuries, if at all.

Yeah right, it’s all happened before, temps regularly go up and down somewhere along the geological history… RIIIIIGHT…

And where were WE HUMANS THEN?; Were we living as today? Were we thriving as a species ?! Yes it has happened before, many times over in fact just NOT IN OUR TIME.

Face the facts, you say a small piece of ice has broken off and that is only that and nothing to be concerned about, yet in all reallity, this “small” piece of ice is just like a cork in a bottle, take it out and just watch all the ice slide on to sea in no time.

What then? Umbrellas to keep Earth away from harmfull radiation? Huge refrigerators with an open door at the poles so it freezes back once you finally realize that YOU DO NEED THAT ICE, IT IS CAUSED BY HUMANS AND IT WILL HINDER OUR ABILITY TO SUSTAIN OUR SPECIES FOR ANOTHER 100years.

Open your eyes please…

P.s. At least in my country WE ARE BEING TAXED FOR CARBON, most of Europe is.

We pay for our messes, metric ton by metric ton. Do you pay in the US ?

Peace

Mike

Wow, lets just insult the other side and make idle death threats.

That’s very productive.

I’m worried about the dirty air we breath, the dirty (and chemical-laced) water we drink, and the mass development (deforestation) that is going on. Those things have immediate, observable effects, such as smog, and a dramatic increase in reparatory illnesses.

Climate change is natural, but it is absolutely irrefutable that humans are altering the environment, especially at the local scale.

This cannot be disputed. Humans are dumping toxins into the environment at unimaginable rates. Somehow, are we supposed to think that all of this magically has no effect on the world’s ecology?

Global warming may not be the whole picture. Global climate destabalization is the reality, and it is already having an effect on our food supply.

The antartic shelf is overrated anyways…

I can’t believe that there are still people denying that global warming exists! If you can’t accept a scientific consensus, you’re a denier, just like true believers of whatever pseudo-science you can think of. Following their own ideologies in spite of contrary evidence.

Here’s some data proving that global warming has been caused in at least some part by human activity (the Industrial Revolution), at least in my mind.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recentac_majorghg.html#fig1

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc_triad.html

I’m in charge of aicraft De-Icing for a major airline. Meteorology has become my life. So I started reading up on all this stuff to see what type of changes in the weather I may see for coming years.

In my area, we have seen a 10″ inch snowfall increase over the last 125 years. Although we’re only in an 8 yr cycle from 2000-’08, we’re still well above the averages we were at 100-125 years ago. But no one ever sees that. They see what they want to see.

But you really have to take in basic physics here. Take a tin can…fill it with water and put it in your freezer for a few weeks. What happens to the ice? It expands. Finding a way out, it moves upward. Now expand on that to scale. The ice shelves are constantly moving. Over time, they move upward and finally gravity takes its course and the ice breaks off. How many bazillions tons of ice is this? No one can even come up with an exact amount. But the ice has to go somewhere. Of course it’s going to fall into the ocean near the shores. Adding that much ice to the water is going to cool it and freeze over. Those parts that broke off will freeze and expand and the process starts all over again. That cool water flows into the Oceanic currents and affects the weather. Its going to take time for it to travel that far tho. It’s not like the currents from Antarctica will reach the norther hemisphere in a day. It would take years before it ever returned back to Antarctica.

On another note, there was a huge ice shelf that broke off in the late ’70′s. So far, it’s moved about 8 feet in 30 years. Ooohh I’m scared. I would suspect that the cracks will fill in long before gravity decides to move it any further. I doubt my grandchildren’s grandchildren will even see that one float away.

Also, reports state that the Antarctic is at it’s lowest ice levels on record. But those records only date back to 1972.

In Russia, the peat moss swamps in the Siberian tundra have been frozen over for centuries and are now exposed. But studies show, the earth is constantly in a rotating flux. While the snows have receeded in Russia, the winters have become colder on the opposite side of the hemisphere suggesting a constant tilt. As the weight of that ice and snow builds, it shifts the earth back in the opposite direction and you start seeing a decline in snowfall and an increase in the areas on the opposite side of the planet. Take a boiled egg and spin it. Then tape a dime towards one side of the top and it throws it off balance when you spin it.

Also, take into account the size of the Polar ice caps in relation to the rest of the oceans. With the amount of icemelt and evaporation, we would never see any type of rise in the ocean’s levels. No more than if you threw the ice in your drink into a swimming pool.

On a last note, I saw the reports of other countries taxing carbon output, but didn’t get to investigate it yet. So since our bodies are made up of carbon and omit cabon dioxide, they are basically taxing you for living and breathing. WTF is that?? They’re basically telling you that you are polluting the world just for being alive. What kind of society would be duped into allowing a tax for this??

Plants need carbon dioxide (from you) to live and convert that into oxygen. You need oxygen to breathe. And you got taxed for it.

Take that into consideration.

Godmaster Says:
March 31st, 2008 at 9:05 pm
I can’t believe that there are still people denying that global warming exists! If you can’t accept a scientific consensus, you’re a denier, just like true believers of whatever pseudo-science you can think of. Following their own ideologies in spite of contrary evidence.

Here’s some data proving that global warming has been caused in at least some part by human activity (the Industrial Revolution), at least in my mind.

Godmaster – keep in mind some of these records only go back to 1900. There was the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl during the beginning of this record keeping. Massive amounts of water were lost to the atmosphere. This shows there was a 4.8 inch rise in water levels since the records started being kept in 1900. Who’s to say the Earth is not recovering from that substantial loss during the early 1900′s? Maybe sea level is supposed to be 6 inches over where it was 100 years ago. I can’t believe it tho. Most of the lakes around me are 2 feet below where they were when I was growing up.

The other reports are products of taking samples of gases and carbons in the ice during those periods by drilling deep into the ice. Only since record keepin has begun has there been a rise in the levels. Think of the harsh winters down there. The samples are not precise because most of the top layers have been blown away or diluted to the levels being reported. I’d bet my ridiculous salary that if coring samples were taken near areas of drifting or obstructions that would trap minerals, the conclusions from these reports would be much higher.

I’m not against the reporting of Global Warming. But I do believe that humans are but a flea on the back of the dog. Unfortunately, once there are too many fleas, he’s gonna need a bath!

The earth has been warming for the last 10,000 years. The science behind human CO 2 contribution to this flawed. It is not fact, and barely a theory. It is entirely based on flawed computer models that are backed into facts to support the conclusions. The great temperature surge of the 1990′s so highly touted by readers of statistics is based once again on poor facts. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, they stopped reporting temperature readings from Siberia. Once these stations came back on line, the worldwide averages once again fell into line.

The earth was warmer at the time of Christ and even warmer at the time of the Babylonians. The earth suffered a micro ice age event around 1200 and we have been warming again since then.

If we were truly worried about about CO2 emissions, we should be more worried about the decimation of our rainforests and pollution of our oceans. These are our great CO2 sinks that convert CO2 to oxygen. Yet, I have yet to hear a whisper off the effect of denuding our rainforests and killing off of algae and plankton has effected the CO2 levels and global weather patterns. Nor have they been factored into the computer models Rather we have identified the enemy as fossil fuels and industrialized nations utilization of them and the great Satan is the United States.

Ever notice no one talks about the ozone hole anymore since it was finally debunked but we are still prohibited from using freon. In the 70′s the cause was over population. We have reached those population levels where they predicted total breakdown of human society and yet we continue to plod on.

Unfortunately, all this hoopla is a smoke screen. It will change nothing. Greed will still rule human society and emotion will over rule fact. The real problems will not be addressed.