Vast Antarctic Ice Shelf 10X The Size Of Manhatten Set To Collapse

[Stalker2]

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5769/endofdays32hs3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Andrea Thompson (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/livescience/sc_livescience/byline/vastantarcticiceshelfonvergeofcollapse/26845269/SIG=11q4atp62/*http://www.livescience.com/php/contactus/author.php?r=at)
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/livescience/sc_livescience/byline/vastantarcticiceshelfonvergeofcollapse/26845269/SIG=10sog4vj6/*http://www.livescience.com) 1 hour, 30 minutes ago


A vast ice shelf hanging on by a thin strip looks to be the next chunk to break off from the Antarctic Peninsula, the latest sign of global warming's impact on Earth's southernmost continent.

Scientists are shocked by the rapid change (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/livescience/sc_livescience/storytext/vastantarcticiceshelfonvergeofcollapse/26845269/SIG=124l4pqkn/*http://www.livescience.com/environment/050421_glacial_retreat.html) of events.

Glaciologist Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado was monitoring satellite images of the Wilkins Ice Shelf and spotted a huge iceberg measuring 25 miles by 1.5 miles (41 kilometers by 2.5 kilometers - about 10 times the area of Manhattan) that appeared to have broken away from the shelf.

Scambos alerted colleagues at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) that it looked like the entire ice shelf - about 6,180 square miles (16,000 square kilometers - about the size of Northern Ireland)- was at risk of collapsing.

David Vaughan of the BAS had predicted in 1993 that the northern part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf was likely to be lost within 30 years if warming on the Peninsula continued at the same rate.

"Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula yet to be threatened," he said. "I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly. The ice shelf is hanging by a thread - we'll know in the next few days and weeks what its fate will be."

LINK: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080325/sc_livescience/vastantarcticiceshelfonvergeofcollapse;_ylt=As6nmA CsfR8ItkStqUL84V.s0NUE

VIDEO: http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7310000/newsid_7313200/7313260.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&ms3=54&ms_javascript=true&bbcws=2

[thetick130]

OH NO!!!!! WERE ALLL GOING TO DIE!! AHHHHAHAHHAHAAHAHA!


Oh wait nevermind, we're fine.

[Mommadeez4u]

Oddly enough, this is the approximate size of the chunk of ice which flew off the car in front of me and smashed my truck while driving after the last snowstorm

[Budyzir]

Martinis anyone?

[wes mantooth]

I'm going to get pitted...so pitted.

[Earth2murf]

well fuck 'em in Florida

[mascan42]

Damn. Once that breaks off and melts, we'll never find Childs and MacReady.

[Ballbuster1]

I'm going to Key Largo in about a month.
This better not fuck up my vacation!:mad4:

[Ballbuster1]

Update:

According to ABC World News tonight, it just broke.

[Ego]

So how many years will we have to wait before we're told just how this is supposed to affect us?

[unklewilly]

so they pay people to sit and watch ice? How do I get that job? Do they drug test you first?

[Voss's Tumor]

Global Warming is Bad!

Global Cooling is Bad!

Climate Change is Bad!

The Ozone layer moves. It's gas. It's a fluid. There are sometimes anomalies over the most extreme of temperature regions -- like the poles -- for a lot of reasons:

-Thermal situations. Sun reflecting off of millions of acres of pure white reflective ice. It makes clouds hot on the underside and cold as hell on the top side. It makes clouds hot as hell on the top side and cold as hell on the bottom side. Realize, a differential of a few degrees in the atmosphere makes gases move. It has magnification properties and stuff involved. Bottom line, temperature makes gases move. ie, ozone layer moves around and changes in form. Some times holes, some times huge pockets.
-Wind. Wind moves gases. Jet Stream, wind, movement happens.
-The Sun is a star. It goes through phases. It blows up at some points, it's quieter at others. It generates different amounts of heat at different times.

This leads to periods of warming and cooling of the entire globe in different ways. Shit happens. Some times it seems like it's warming up, and it seems like it's cooling. We've really only had the concept of numerical temperature for 500 or so years. I, personally, don't hold much value in the thermometer technology of the same people who funded the Crusades and thought bleeding meant healing and the world was flat. Let's not even get into the understanding of our atmosphere with a people who thought the world was flat.

Stop it. Dinosaurs and crazy shit existed. We're a dominate species. It happens. We can't base 6,000,000 years of science on 300 yeears of science.

[BIV]

It's global warming, MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN.

DIE!

[Glenn Dandy]

i wonder how many cuban can float to America on it?

[Kugzilla]

Maybe I should stay out here in Hawaii.

[BigDickGuzinya]

I'm pretty sure it was a 'bagger that made the point once that if you have a glass of ice water,how come the water doesn't overflow when the ice melts? So,all that shit along the edges is already in the ocean right? And there is no land at the norf pole,so it's all floating.

[JimsInfectedEye]

Now I don't feel so bad about cashing out my 401k

[mikepop]

The full Wilkins 6,000 square mile ice shelf is just 0.39% of the current ice sheet (just 0.1% of the extent last September). Only a small portion of it between 1/10th-1/20th of Wilkins has separated so far, like an icicle falling off a snow and ice covered house. And this winter is coming on quickly. In fact the ice is returning so fast, it is running an amazing 60% ahead (4.0 vs 2.5 million square km extent) of last year when it set a new record. The ice extent is already approaching the second highest level for extent since the measurements began by satellite in 1979 and just a few days into the Southern Hemisphere winter and 6 months ahead of the peak. Wilkins like all the others that temporarily broke up will refreeze soon. We are very likely going to exceed last year’s record. Yet the world is left with the false impression Antarctica’s ice sheet is also starting to disappear.
Question: These "icebergs" they speak of - where did they come from in the pre-warming era, when ice shelves remained intact?


http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate