14,000 KM2 Chunk Breaks Off Wilkins Ice Shelf - Spanish Researchers Spot Huge Remnant Bergs

[hatrack]

Madrid - Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf is rapidly disintegrating, Spanish scientists reported on Tuesday, with potentially ominous implications for climate change.

An ice sheet of 14,000 square kilometres has broken off from the Wilkins Shelf, and has itself broken into several large icebergs, according to a statement from Spain's National Research Council (CSIC).

CSIC scientists aboard the Hesperides maritime research vessel spotted the disintegration, about 1,600 kilometres south of the southern tip of South America.

If their observation is confirmed, only a small tip of the huge 16,000 square kilometre ice shelf would still be attached to Antarctica.

EDIT

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1460070.php/Researchers_spot_huge_split_in_Antartic_ice_shelf_

[MineralMan]

1. This is not good news...not at all.

[benld74]

2. BUT George Will just wrote Global warming is wrong!

[stuntcat]

4. George Fuckbrain Will

If I was a violent maniac I would hunt and kill George Will for the bullshit he's gotten printed lately.

I actually have been looking for his address. Fucking enabler.. HE is 100% responsible for everything that happens from now on, him and every single individual who ever voted with him.

[Gregorian]

3. The evidence lags behind the cause. This is what alarms me the most.

Water doesn't melt unless the water is ABOVE the melting point. In other words, the temperatures had to rise first. And in a big system just what kind of time are we talking about. The longer the time lag the more into the damage we go before seeing the indicators.

I have spent a lifetime observing just what extent the modern society has used combustion as a source for it's manipulations. Gears are hardened in furnaces. So just about every gear in every transmission has gone through this process. Things you don't ever see. Things you take for granted.

I still think we should have had a fuel unit sticker on foods and items. Bananas. How far were they shipped. A number gets put on it. As it stands we buy things that make no sense. I saw vegetables from Portugal this morning. They were probably flown in to San Francisco and then trucked up the coast. Units of fuel.

But I think we are past the point of trying to think about the problem solutions. The problem has us under it's control now. This is what intelligent leaders would have been preparing us for. A soft landing. A less painful situation. And once again, we won't pay the price. Ethiopians who don't get their rainfall, Bangladesh water levels, and those without resources will suffer first.

I was buying fish this morning, and was talking to the butcher about this. As I walked away he said, thanks for brightening up my morning. I really felt bad. I forgot we're supposed to be cheerful and uplifting.

[defendandprotect]

5. Monopoly and exploitation depend upon destroying "local" ---

exactly as we saw with Enron manipulation of energy in CA ---

Stop buying anything that isn't made in USA -- and don't buy garlic from Argentina

and asparagus from Peru!

I'm in NJ -- the garden state!

[Spurt]

6. Stay calm

There is no scientific proof that Antarctic ice is being affected at all by AGW, even though there is much speculation that it might be.

Ice shelf collapses have been happening forever and will continue to do so no matter what. Atmospheric (AGW) factors are only part of the causes of shelf collapse. Arguably more influential are oceanic and glaciological factors.

It is worthy of note that at June 2008 Antarctica had the same area of ice that it had 30 years ago when accurate measures were first enabled by satellite photography.

This event was predicted over a year ago and is no surprise at all.
So chill out and observe the awesome cycle of nature.

[hatrack]

7. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Calm enough?

:eyes:

[kestrel91316]

8. Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.