Wilkins ice Shelf: Northern Ice Front Unstable, Enormous Chunks Collapse

Reuters:

An area of an Antarctic ice shelf almost the size of New York City has broken into icebergs this month after the collapse of an ice bridge widely blamed on global warming, a scientist said Tuesday.

"The northern ice front of the Wilkins Ice Shelf has become unstable and the first icebergs have been released," Angelika Humbert, glaciologist at the University of Muenster in Germany, said of European Space Agency satellite images of the shelf.

Read the whole story: Reuters

Comments

[realpolitic]

Accorin to NASA, Artarctica is warming....

"Over the years, climate research in northern latitudes led researchers to believe that the Arctic is where impacts of global climate change would be seen first. Less certain is how climate is affecting Antarctica where inland temperatures are known to plunge to minus 112°F, and ground-based weather stations have been sparse."

"The new analysis shows that Antarctic surface temperatures increased an average of 0.22°F (0.12°C) per decade between 1957 and 2006. That's a rise of more than 1°F (0.5°C) in the last half century. West Antarctica warmed at a higher rate, rising 0.31°F (0.17°C) per decade. The results, published Jan. 22 in Nature, confirm earlier findings based on limited weather station data and ice cores."

"While some areas of East Antarctica have been cooling in recent decades, the longer 50-year trend depicts that, on average, temperatures are rising across the continent.

West Antarctica is particularly vulnerable to climate changes because its ice sheet is grounded below sea level and surrounded by floating ice shelves. If the West Antarctic ice sheet completely melted, global sea level would rise by 16 to 20 feet (5 to 6 meters)."

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_antarctica.html

[SFTor]

So you are saying that this 1 degree Fahrenheit warming over the last 50 years is the cause for this ice breaking off?

[SFTor]

Is there anyone who is saying that this breaking off of ice is abnormal or worrisome?

Is anyone saying that this is due to global warming?

As has already been mentioned the Antarctic ice cover has expanded over the last 30 years.

[realpolitic]

Yes, to your first two questions.

[Richard2]

Please look at the aerial photo carefully. Note all the neat, straight lines. This ice isn't melting. It is simply cracking, which is what ice does at this location in Antarctica. This event has nothing to do with "global warming." Is this ice "unstable?" Well, after it splits off, it floats on the ocean, surrounded by other pieces of ice. Hope the same location can have its picture taken next year too, so we can more photos of ice splitting off. Alternatively, check the ice cubes in your ice cube tray once in a while.

[realpolitic]

Richard says the ice is not melting it is just cracking. Yes, these huge chunks of ice the size of New York City that have been there for millenia are cracking off of Western Antarctica and then going into the ocean where they melt.

According to David Vaughan, a British Antarctic Survey scientist: "Temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have warmed by up to 3 Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) this century, Vaughan said, a trend climate scientists blame on global warming from burning fossil fuels in cars, factories and power plants."

According to Dr. James Hansen: "The fact that West Antarctica is shedding mass at a substantial rate, even though there is only small warming of surrounding sea surface temperatures, is a telling fact in my opinion, and a likely consequence of the warming ocean at depth, which affects the ice shelves that buttress West Antarctica, as discussed in our paper "Dangerous human-made interference with climate: a GISS modelE study.""

[Richard2]

For aerial photos, with common reference features, of the Wilkins ice shelf from 1993, 1994, 2003, 2004, 2008 and 2009, please see

www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/antarcticwilkinsiceshelf.html

Any particular piece of ice has not been there for millenia.

[AngieMom57]

Wow, got to pass this one on to my university friends...

[TJCole]

Global Warming is a myth, haven't you heard..?

[cjt1957]

Glad you confirmed it....next post down does as well....

[TJCole]

Yeah it's just those damn "liberal satellites", showing the ice melting everywhere....

[JanBjernfalk]

Interesting that the article mentions warming on the relatively small Antarctic peninsula, while neglecting to mention there has been a net cooling on the larger area that is the rest of the continent.

Also not mentioned is the fact that a recent British survey found Antarctic sea ice extent has actually been increasing over the past 30 years, at an average rate of 100,000 sq km per year.

There is good news on the other side of the globe as well. Sea ice total area in the arctic, having hit a low point in 2007, began recovering in 2008, and now is back to normal levels.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

Also, a German-led expedition has been flying a specially modified DC-3 over the North Pole and surrounding area with a sophisticated ice-thickness measuring instrument. The result: they found that the ice was twice as thick as the researchers expected.
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.radiobremen.de%2Fwissen%2Fnachrichten%2Fwissenawipolararktis100.html&sl=de&tl=en&history_state0=
(sorry for the automatic translation - "eisdicken" means "ice thickness", and "eisstarcke" means "ice strength" in German)

[AngieMom57]

Hang on it going to be ride to weather ;-)

[realpolitic]

No, Antarctica is losing ice en masse and experencing increase in temperatures....

"The increase in sea ice around the South Pole may actually be bad news—an indicator that steadily rising temperatures are already wreaking havoc.

"No one's entirely sure what's causing the expansion of sea ice in Antarctica, but the likeliest explanation is a disturbing one. According to a 2005 NASA-funded study, warmer temperatures have caused greater snowfall around the continent's edges, where the open oceans provide plenty of raw material for precipitation. (Warmer air absorbs moisture more readily.) The weight of that excess snow pushes sheets of sea ice down into the water, causing more water to freeze."

"The incremental expansion of Antarctica's sea ice has coincided with some more troubling changes. Four of the continent's largest glaciers (whose fates are largely unrelated to that of sea ice) are retreating rapidly, and researchers blame increases in ocean temperature. The diminishment of such massive glaciers means that, despite the slow creep forward of the continent's sea ice, the total mass of all Antarctic ice—which includes inland ice—has experienced a marked decrease. And a continuation of that trend could lead to significant rises in global sea levels. Furthermore, snow is melting much farther inland than ever, as well as high up in the Transantarctic Mountains."

http://www.slate.com/id/2192730/

[realpolitic]

In reference to Artic ice, according to NOAA....

"The continued significant reduction in the extent of the summer sea ice cover is a dramatic illustration of the pronounced impact increased global temperatures are having on the Arctic regions. There has also been a significant reduction in the relative amount of older, thicker ice."

"During 2008 the summer minimum ice extent, observed in September, reached 4.7 million km2. While slightly above the record minimum of 4.3 million km2, set just a year earlier in September 2007, the 2008 summer minimum further reinforces the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent observed over the past thirty years."

"The Arctic sea ice cover is composed of perennial ice (the ice that survives year-round) and seasonal ice (the ice that melts during the summer). Consistent with the diminishing trends in the extent and thickness of the cover is a significant loss of the older, thicker perennial ice in the Arctic. Data from NASA indicate that the amount of perennial ice in the March ice cover has decreased from approximately 5.5 to 3.0 million km2 over the period 1958–2007."

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/seaice.html

[Mavin1620]

Too warm in the Arctic, too cold in Kitsap County. It's climate change. Read there is a hole in the Jet Stream letting cold air South. Some controversy on this.

[elmerfude]

This has clearly been caused by Al Gore. He probably flew his jet over it and dropped deicer.

[missouriwatcher]

More evidence of the reality global warming--still a lot of skeptics/non-believers around these parts. Of course, should the Atlantic sea current conveyer stop, the world would have rapid cooling along with other nasty weather phenomena and these above-mentioned folks would say, "See, we were right!"

[friedfish2718]

While the co2-based AGW alarmists are crying about a loss of less that 0.4% of Antarctic ice (Wilkins ice shelf), they ignore the fact that NASA satellite imagery shows a volcanic hot spot right under the Wilkins ice shelf. Also, they ignore the increased ice on the rest of Antarctica. There are weather stations whose data has not been collected for 2-3 years since they are buried in ice.

And the peninsula? Unlike the rest of the continent, it has several active and inactive VOLCANOS (!!!!). There is a tectonic fault line separating East (colder) and West (hotter) Antarctica. Along the fault line is a dozen volcanoes. At it’s very tip is an active volcano, one aptly named “Deception Island”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deception_Island

The hot springs are well known:
http://www.micktravels.com/antarctica/deception/

Location of Wilkins Ice shelf (lying close to the fault line)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20080325_wilkins_figure1.jpg

Antarctic temperature trends from NASA:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=6502

Antarctic temperature trends from University of Illinois:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/ANTARCTIC/TRENDS/IMAGES/annual.trend.1958-2002.gif

Common point: volcanic activity.

Antarctic Ice extent from University of Illinois:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg

[realpolitic]

"But while the Pine Island Glacier may be thinning because of the volcano, it’s highly unlikely the thinning of Antarctica’s ice sheet as a whole can be blamed on hidden volcanoes. For one thing, Antarctica has very few active volcanoes. Most glacial scientists, including Dr. Vaughan himself, blame warmer ocean waters for glacial thinning in West Antarctica."

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/volcano-not-global-warming-effects-may-be-melting-an-antarctic-glacier/714

[realpolitic]

From Antarctica Temperature Trends:

"Why is Antarctica getting colder in the middle when it’s warming up around the edge? One possible explanation is that the warmer temperatures in the surrounding ocean have produced more precipitation in the continent’s interior, and this increased snowfall has cooled the high-altitude region around the pole. Another possible explanation involves ozone. Ozone in the Earth’s stratosphere absorbs ultraviolet radiation, and absorbing this energy warms the stratosphere. Loss of UV-absorbing ozone may have cooled the stratosphere and strengthened the polar vortex, a pattern of spinning winds around the South Pole. The vortex acts like an atmospheric barrier, preventing warmer, coastal air from moving in to the continent’s interior. A stronger polar vortex might explain the cooling trend in the interior of Antarctica."

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=6502

[Richard2]

For two similar pieces, see these:

www.appinsys.com/antarcticwilkinsiceshelf.htm

[BSer]

The White House should send Air Force One over it for a photo op.

[StopGlobalWarmingBeVegan]

More bad news, go veg to help solve this problem.

[ksyellowdog]

The faint glimmer of not terrible news is this is a sea bound glacier and will not add to the sea level.
The terrible news is it will detract from salinity though. A popular theory has it that once the salinity weakens enough, the ocean currents we know to drive our weather systems will at minimum change, the worst case has them stopping and ushering in an ice age for Europe while North America is desiccated by drought.

[Nooooorm]

That is a grim analysis.

Did you miss the part where there are massive storms that bury most of the U.S. in snow? That happens after tornados hit Los Angeles and softball sized hail attack innocent Japanese.

[bubbuh]

Just innocent Japanese?

[realpolitic]

I guess all the Japanese have to watch out for the softball-sized hail and the rest of us can go out then!

[shaman]

I think the theory you mention is the Great Conveyor and it relates to the current that runs off of the US and carries warm water north and moderates temps in UK & Europe. Wilkins is in the South.