New Rifts Discovered On Antarctic Ice Shelf Could Lead To It Breaking Away From Antarctic Penninsula

CNN:

Scientists have identified new rifts on an Antarctic ice shelf that could lead to it breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula, the European Space Agency said.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf, a large sheet of floating ice south of South America, is connected to two Antarctic islands by a strip of ice. That ice "bridge" has lost about 2,000 square kilometers (about 772 square miles) this year, the ESA said.

Read the whole story: CNN

Comments

[SCHenrich]

The trend is not our friend here:

http://thedailyoracle.com/index.php/climate-watch-the-trend-is-not-your-friend

[fumes]

it was pretty cold today!

[realpolitic]

But what about water vapor?

[fumes2]

it was pretty cold today!

[StopGlobalWarmingBeVegan]

I'm worried about the methane gas, errupting from the ocean.

[Exusian]

Down thread our friend fumes wrote: "not exactly: that would be 3% of one of the greenhouse gases, co2. and co2 accounts for .038% of the atmosphere, therefore we are accountable for 3% of .038% of the atmosphere."

Unfortunately fumes is a bit mixed up. First, I don't know what that 3% means or where it comes from, but is the rate at which CO2 is currently increasing in the atmosphere each and every year is around 3ppm. Problem is, that 3ppm is cumulative, meaning the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by almost 38% since humans began burning fossil carbon on an industrial scale. The other inconvenient detail is that 97% or more of the atmosphere does not contribute to the greenhouse effect in any way, which means that .038% is pretty potent for its size. Kind of like cyanide. A few micrograms is all it takes.

[MGhamma]

Careful Exusian, fumes might take offense at being called "a bit mixed up".

[fumes]

ha ha you're right exusian, i screwed up the math by a decimal point! my bad. say, how do you like my personal troll arnie, he follows me everywhere? enjoy the win there bud, you deserve it! (still don't buy the co2 crap though) c'ya

[Exusian]

Yeah, I noticed. Both you and MG should cut the juvenile schoolyard crap, it's demeaning to both of you.

And it doesn't really matter if you buy the CO2 science or not, it will go on doing what it does regardless. Reality is like that.

[MGhamma]

I'm your personal troll? When did that happen? And who's arnie? Anyway, sorry that I accused you of being afraid, didn't realise that was worse than being accused of being ignorant. But the link that I provided clearly shows that global warming denier blogs falsify information to support their contentions. ( the newsbusters article provided the link that showed that they lied!! What's up with that?) In other words they lie to you, and then you repeat the lies. Whether or not you know that you're spreading lies, only you can answer that. But if you're really interested in the truth, it would seem to me that you'd want to make sure that the info you read is accurate. And from my perspective, what I've seen, the information that you're basing your opinion on is, for lack of a better term, 'junk science'. Doesn't that concern you at all?

[topgunna]

Well, it's also important to note that heat increase is a logarithmic function of CO2. The IPCC uses the formula:

Temperature Increase = F(C2) - F(C1) where F(c)=Ln (1+1.2c+0.005c^2 +0.0000014c^3) and c is the concentration in ppm

In other words, every additional increment of CO2 traps less heat than the last. And this makes good sense, since CO2 can only absorb a few select frequencies of infrared.

I do think CO2 is responsible for some of the 20th century temperature increase (probably not all .6 C for a number of reasons). I don't however, believe that the Earth's natural climactic response mechanisms are dominated by positive feedback - that the climate responds to inputs by tending to instablity. If they were, I suspect runaway temperature increase would have happened long ago: say around the 1200s for instance, when Greenland had a farming season and grapes grew in England.

[Exusian]

Topgunna, Yes, it is indeed a log function, i.e. each doubling in concentration produces only as much warming as the previous doubling. But the wavelengths that CO2 absorbs broaden as concentration increases, so CO2 is not as tightly limited as you might think, and its ability to absorb IR can never become 'saturated' as some assert.

I agree that Earth's climate can not be dominated by positive feedbacks, as each round of feedback produces less feedback in the next round, so it is self-limiting. We simply will not see 'runaway' warming, as some alarmists worry. However, that doesn't mean that the limited feedback-assisted warming we will see will be benign or that our climate will be as stable as it currently is. After all, the geologic record shows how high temperature, CO2 and sea levels have been in the past, even with a weaker sun.

As for agriculture in Greenland, I think if you check you will find that the Norse settlers were dairyman--the ruins of their barns still stand--and that they grew a very limited variety of food crops beyond silage for their cattle. You might also want to look up current vineyards and wine industry in Great Britain.

[MGhamma]

I guess fumes IS afraid. Cluck cluck cluck.

[fumes]

you scare easy there don't you mg? the subject is climate change for christ's sake, boo!

[MGhamma]

So, I provided a link, either check out my claim, or admit that you're scared to. I'm putting up. Can you?

[fumes2]

you scare easy there don't you mg? the subject is climate change for christ's sake, boo!

[MGhamma]

Or should I say,you're spreading "junk science".

[MGhamma]

www.newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/07/18/will-msm-report-2008. This is an interesting link. Read the acticle and then click on the National Snow and Ice Data Center link that they provide, and read their report. This is why I laugh at all you deniers. You're spreading lies and you don't even know it.

[Exusian]

For those who assert that CO2 is such a minor trace gas in Earth's atmosphere that it can't possibly make as much difference as scientists claim, and that water vapour is a far more important greenhouse gas, a very good point was recently made in a discussion at RealClimate.Org:

Without CO2 in Earth's atmosphere there would be almost no water vapor in the atmosphere, average surface temperature would be a little above -18C, and the entire ocean would be frozen over.

How come? The greenhouse effect requires a gas that will not condense out of the atmosphere at ambient temperature. Water vapour alone does not fit the bill, but CO2, methane and several other trace gases do. It is those gasses that make it warm enough to allow any appreciable water vapour to exist in Earth's atmosphere, and to boost the warming that those trace gasses provide.

In other words, the trace CO2 in Earth's atmosphere makes life as we know it possible. Too little, too cold, to much, too hot. We tinker with it at our peril.

Science works. Deal with it.

[fumes]

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! to quote mghamma. ''Without CO2 in Earth's atmosphere there would be almost no water vapor in the atmosphere, average surface temperature would be a little above -18C, and the entire ocean would be frozen over.'' our deserts are deserts because there is almost no water vapor there and yet they get pretty hot. hmm...

[MGhamma]

Everytime I've gone to the desert, I've spent time lying down and and just looking up at the clouds. Maybe I was just hallucinating.

[Exusian]

Ever been in the desert at night, as all that heat radiates right back into space, unimpeded by high humidity?

Ever been to the desert known as Antarctica?

Both prove the point I outlined above.

You might want to read up on relative and absolute humidity before you laugh yourself silly, and on the blackbody temperature of Earth without factoring in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

But hey, never let reality keep you from expressing an ignorant opinion.

[fumes2]

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! to quote mghamma. ''Without CO2 in Earth's atmosphere there would be almost no water vapor in the atmosphere, average surface temperature would be a little above -18C, and the entire ocean would be frozen over.'' our deserts are deserts because there is almost no water vapor there and yet they get pretty hot. hmm...

[WilliePilgrim]

I really enjoy the stories about the dramatic changes that are emblematic of the dynamic system in which we live. I could do without all the loaded interpretations regarding climate change, however. The fact that the ice shelves of the Antarctic periodically break off and head out to sea is not something new. The speculation that it's something to worry about, however, is. Just as the fact that some glaciers are growing doesn't mean that the planet is cooling, we would similarly be wise to note the changes and consider the comlexity of the systems that we are interested in observing.
I personally believe that CO2 is not a big thing, but I am very much interested in seeing the world's nations unite to combat the genuine and unambiguous impacts humans are definitely responsible for such as the pollution of our water and air from inefficient buring for our obscenely consumption fixated industrial economy. What about population? What about the curse of aquaculture as it compromises the earth's most productive ecosystems; the coastal regions of the planet. What about the continuing fractionalizatio nof habitat? Why save polar bears if we don't intend to re-introduce them back into their historical range?
I'm frustrated that there are so many ways to address the problems but we are led to believe that the only way is by this bizarre scheme of cap and tax, which really seems like an administrative boondoggle. Drop the cap and trade and go for the real problems.

[evilzed]

How long can they keep this rubbish up, the arctic ice is getting bigger by the day, there is today satellite photos to prove it and its getting colder.
Not to mention that the last few month temperature were found to have been copied from previous months to allow carbon legislature to proceed forward.
The sooner it freezes over the quicker this rubbish will end, and by the current records, that wont be far off

[Exusian]

Hold the presses, another climate change denier just discovered winter.

[Freesia2]

lol

[MGhamma]

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[topgunna]

Just so we're clear: heat does not cause ice to break. It causes melting. Pressure is what causes ice to break.

Global warming or not, an ice shelf breaking is meaningless to the debate.

[Exusian]

Not quite. Melting weakens ice, making it more susceptible to pressure.

[topgunna]

You're missing my point. Ice will always melt from the outside in because of the way heat is transfered. The shelves break when the glacier re-freezes in an unbalanced way (and they almost always do, since some areas of an 800 sq. mile glacier will undoubtedly receive more precipitation than other parts).

Furthermore, 2008 saw record levels of Antarctic sea ice extent (around the same time we saw record lows in the Arctic). So it's hard to argue that a world-wide phenomenon is occuring when only part of the world is experiencing it. I think it makes much more sense that urbanization (black asphalt and large buildings that do a much better job of absorbing heat than a trace gas) is driving most of northern hemisphere temperature increase, and that black carbon particles from China are probably responsible for the a lot of the melting at the North Pole.

[Exusian]

But don't forget that 'outside' includes the underside of floating and even grounded ice shelves, and the walls of moulons as they transport melt water and heat down into the ice mass.

As for the differential in the rate of warming of the poles, there are a number of reasons that no one should be at all surprised that the south lags the north. 1) There is far more ocean than land mass in the southern hemisphere compared to the northern, and water is much more efficient at absorbing heat redirected by greenhouse warming.

2) The Arctic basin is an ocean largely surrounded by land mass, while Antarctica is a land mass completely surrounded by water. There is nothing to inhibit the circumpolar vortex or circumpolar current, both of which serve to insulate Antarctica from warmer winds and currents from further north, except on the Antarctic Peninsula, where warming has been almost as great as in the Arctic.

3) Antarctica is also covered with a very high and very massive ice dome, which dominates any greenhouse gas warming on the continent, and keeps the surrounding ocean cold. The height of the ice doom also means that there is less atmosphere above it, which is one reason it is such a cold desert.

continued....

[Exusian]

...continued

4) And finally, the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica doesn't only mean that there is less ozone, it also means that there is even less atmosphere.

It's no wonder we're seeing higher seasonal ice area in the south.

As for the urban heat island effect, I'd like to see how it accounts for comparative temperature trends at rural temperature stations, let alone faster and greater warming in the Arctic.

[sixx]

Arnold says tow it to Southern California.

[Apollonavigator]

Heck no. Tow it to Northern California. We will sell it to southern cal just like we do with all our clear Sierra river water.

[Amennyc]

When will Wal Mart start selling glaciers!!!

[ohiomark]

So, what exactly is the perfect climate and who decides it?

Climate change IS real. It's been happening since the begining of time, even before smoke stacks, SUV's and Al Gore's private jet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c

Get over yourselves Libs, you can't change or control the climate, just adapt.

[rfshunt]

The "perfect" climate is one that doesn't change ecosystems so quickly and so extremely that human populations are unable to adapt without wholesale starvation and dislocation. Intelligent people all know that the climate isn't static. It's the suddenness of the changes that are headed out way that's the problem.

Who decides? We decide as a race - not the wealthy few who are blinding themselves (and you, apparently) to the effects of uncontrolled emissions.

Limiting the amount of greenhouse gas we emit IS adapting. That's what adapting in an intelligent way looks like.

[Leatherhelmet]

No, reacting in an intelligent way would be to study the problem and have verifiable predictive proof of the effects of any actions taken.

Since man only accounts for 3% of the greenhouse gasses, it is possible that no matter what we do, it will have no effect since we can't control the other 97%. It is also possible that a warmer world would be a safer world for the poor since carbon is needed for heat and food. If our decision decreased the carbon and took us to a cooler climate, ice is far more dangerous for animals and humans than warmth.

Imposing carbon taxes on a stressed economy is represses the economy. The whole global warming movement to tax and reduce carbon is illadvised scientifically and economically until we have far more answers to what our actions would do.

[Exusian]

Leatherhelmet--an apt handle since leather helmets have not been used in aviation or football in many, many years, so it's a pretty good indication of how out of touch with current reality his views are--attempts to downplay the impact of CO2 by referring to it as only 3% of greenhouse gases, hoping you won't realise that it is the main greenhouse gas that is increasing in the atmosphere, and that humans are overwhelmingly responsible for that increase. We know this by measuring the change in the ratio of C12 to C13.

He also hopes you will be fooled by the assertion that we can't control the other 97%, which is correct. That's because the other 97% is good old water vapour, or H2O. He hopes you won't know that atmospheric water vapour can not go up unless the atmosphere first warms, which means it can not be a direct forcing the way CO2 can, but only act as a feedback to an initial warming.

In other words, our helmeted friend is deliberately trying to confuse and mislead you.
Show him that you're smarter than he thinks you are.

[RepugsOut08]

Hawaii. Hawaiians.

[KillTheMessenger]

How does it feel to be a denialist? Must feel good, I guess.

[Apollonavigator]

How does it feel to suffer from a severe case of stupid?

[BrettnCalgary]

Sigh

http://www.realclimate.org/

http://www.ipcc.ch/

[Exusian]

"So, what exactly is the perfect climate and who decides it?"

The one your species and all the species you depend on have adapted to.
Change climate faster than these species can adapt to and they will become extinct.

[Retrofuturistic]

If we had giant reflectors at the poles, they would reflect the sunlight back into space, and stop the melting.

Better hurry to build them, because the weight of the polar ice caps is what balances the earth on its axis.

In 2012, when the earth is closer to the sun than usual, if there is no ice to effect balance, the earth could flip on its axis.

[olephart]

“Better hurry to build them”

Cheney has already lined up Halliburton with a no bid contract.

[RepugsOut08]

I believe we're in a bad situation with the climate change crisis looming, but I don't believe the Earth is gonna flip on it's axis due to the lack of an ice cap. It has lacked an ice cap many times in it's existance without flipping.
The Moon actually stablizes the Earth's tilt. Without the Moon, the wobbling you refer to would be a major problem for stability of ecosystems.
Perhaps you're thinking about the magnetic orientation of the Earth. That does flip around every so many thousands of years, and is due to move further away from it's pole orientation very soon. I don't think any major problems are anticipated with that event, except compasses will no longer point north.

[Exusian]

So much nonsense in such a short post.

Earth will not flip on it's axis. It has not in 4 billion years, it will not in 2012.

Perhaps you're confused with the magnetic poles, which have wandered and flipped, many times?

Building giant reflectors above the poles will not prevent any sunlight from reaching the poles, since sunlight at the poles is tangent to the surface.

In any case, it would do nothing to prevent saturation of the ocean with CO2 and consequent ocean acidification, which would totally transform the marine food chain.

[realpolitic]

How do you know so much science?

[BushSunkOurShip]

Bush , Exxon and company is shouting for joy ,,,, Drill Baby ,,, Drill... Is a coming our way....
If you can not get to the oil , bring it to you...