• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Massive crack in Antarctica ice shelf grows 11 miles in only 6 days #HeyTrump

O

Oersted

Member
636193128325538365-AP-Antarctica-Ice-Shelf-Crack.jpg


Only eight miles remain until the crack in the Larsen C ice shelf cuts all the way across, producing an iceberg about the size of the state of Delaware.
Click to expand...

Adrian Luckman of Project MIDAS, a British Antarctic research project that's keeping watch on the ever-growing crack, said it's the largest jump since January. The full process is known as "calving," the timing of which is "very close," he added.

Once the iceberg breaks off, it "will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula," he said.
Click to expand...

060117-antarctica-larsen-c-ice-shelf_online.png


Project Midas has a blog, you can follow it here

http://www.projectmidas.org/

via

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech...-antarctica-crack-expands-11-miles/102385980/

Lock if old
 
X

Xe4

Banned
To be entirely fair, even huge ice sheets like this don't matter too much. What matters is total ice. This is a bit misleading, because Antarctica gains ice by 86 billion tons a year. Greenland offsets it at 269 billion tons a year.

Thus the world looses ice at 183 billion tons a year. That is the same of 183 cubic kilometers of water every year, or half a cubic kilometer of ice every day (if it was the same every day, which it is not). And that's not even adding in other sources, such as glaciers.

This ice shelf, while massive, isn't very big in comparison.
 
S

Soul_Pie

Member
Cracked harder than denuvo.

But yeah, the size of these things is enormous, I think this is what I never comprehended before watching some documentaries and seeing parts of it break up. Breathtaking actually and a reminder of the incredibly powerful forces at work in the world.
 
JordanN

JordanN

Banned
BeforeU said:
fat ignorant orange turd doesn't care
Click to expand...

And the world can't sit by and tolerate this attitude anymore.

Trump needs to be held accountable now. We don't let countries get away with murder, the same should apply for those who deny climate science. Even worse, Trump perpetuates it.
He teaches climate denial like it's a fact.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
dramatis said:
In a discussion with others about this, the first thing that came to mind was that Trump would just build a wall around Mar a Lago.
Click to expand...

No one is gonna' travel across inundated land to get to a walled-off golf resort. He's a complete idiot, but you can take some consolation in that Trump's gonna' see a lot of his investments go up in flames... or go damp, I guess.
 
X

Xe4

Banned
IndoAssassin said:
This shelf has already displaced the water right?
Click to expand...

Likely large parts of it have. That's assuming it's already largely floating and not on land. Ice melt isn't even the biggest reason the oceans are rising anyhow (though it's becoming an increasingly large part). Mostly, it's heating of the ocean (where the vast majority of the heat is going) that is causing expansion and thus increasing the total volume.

There's a lot of ice going into the oceans, but there's a *lot* of water in the ocean, so it takes a whole lot of ice to displace it even a little.

Addendum: It should be noted, I was only talking about the ice shelves contribution to oceanic rise. When glaciers and ice caps are added, the contribution to sea level rise from ice melt becomes equal to or greater than that of thermal expansion. Thank you to MrSunshine for pointing this out, and I apologize for the error.
 
S

Saucestin_Roast

Member
Wasn't the UAE trying to collect an iceberg and bring it all the way down to serve as an attraction? This is their big break!

Real talk, this is messed up though. Hope Trump takes notice.
 
I

IndoAssassin

Banned
SteveMeister said:
Yes. Breaking free won't cause any flooding. It's land ice melting that's the main concern. However, the more the ice shelf fails, the more likely the land ice will melt.
Click to expand...

Xe4 said:
Likely large parts of it have. That's assuming it's already largely floating and not on land. Ice melt isn't even the biggest reason the oceans are rising anyhow (though it's becoming an increasingly large part). Mostly, it's heating of the ocean (where the vast majority of the heat is going) that is causing expansion and thus increasing the total volume.

There's a lot of ice going into the oceans, but there's a *lot* of water in the ocean, so it takes a whole lot of ice to displace it even a little.
Click to expand...

Yes I know the less land mass the ice covers the earth, the less sunlight is reflected away and the more volume of water the greater the absorption of the sunlight.

However wouldn't the greater expansion of water slow the acidification?
 
T

tuxfool

Banned
Xe4 said:
Likely large parts of it have. That's assuming it's already largely floating and not on land. Ice melt isn't even the biggest reason the oceans are rising anyhow (though it's becoming an increasingly large part). Mostly, it's heating of the ocean (where the vast majority of the heat is going) that is causing expansion and thus increasing the total volume.

There's a lot of ice going into the oceans, but there's a *lot* of water in the ocean, so it takes a whole lot of ice to displace it even a little.
Click to expand...

That, and the fact that water actually takes up more volume when frozen.
 
W

Woorloog

Banned
So, wait, is this ice that is in water (ie no effect on anything) or ice that is on top of ground and causes a lot of troubles if it slides into water?

EDIT Apparently this is floating ice, so not a problem per se.

dc3k said:
Okay but how big is Delaware
Click to expand...

Size of that ice shelf.
 
X

Xe4

Banned
IndoAssassin said:
Yes I know the less land mass the ice covers the earth, the less sunlight is reflected away and the more volume of water the greater the absorption of the sunlight.

However wouldn't the greater expansion of water slow the acidification?
Click to expand...
Yes, but the uptake of CO2 by the oceans overpowers this affect. Same with salination of the oceans. More freshwater means less salty oceans, but local weather being more extreme means that the salinity can change drastically in both directions.
Sauces
https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification?
https://phys.org/news/2012-04-rainfall.html
tuxfool said:
That, and the fact that water actually takes up more volume when frozen.
Click to expand...

Yeah, water does this weird thing where it has a density inversion at 4C. So a ice melting leads to slightly less water than the volume that melted in the first place (to a point).
906688582.Ph.1.jpg


Caddywompus said:
Is there any estimation on what kind of impact when it breaks off? Would it create a tsunami that could hit Africa?
Click to expand...
This is going to have very little effect when it finally breaks. Stuff like this is great for visualizing climate change but has very little effect on the actual climate due to the scale of forces and volumes involved. To give an example, Greenland likely looses twice this much land ice (this is very likely sea ice) every single year. And that's taking into account what it grows back in the winter.
 
R

R10Neymarfan

Member
I for one await the 100 apocalyptic world

All the Trumpsters will survive and end up forming the basis for real life Grounders
 
N

NoRéN

Member
Baby Jesus is blessing us by adding a big chunk of ice to our waters and I'm supposed to fear global "warning"?

Lolololo liberals!

clearly not serious
 
M

MrSunshine

Member
Xe4 said:
Likely large parts of it have. That's assuming it's already largely floating and not on land. Ice melt isn't even the biggest reason the oceans are rising anyhow (though it's becoming an increasingly large part). Mostly, it's heating of the ocean (where the vast majority of the heat is going) that is causing expansion and thus increasing the total volume.

There's a lot of ice going into the oceans, but there's a *lot* of water in the ocean, so it takes a whole lot of ice to displace it even a little.
Click to expand...

Contributions due to thermal expansion and reduction in land ice are comparable in size, with shedding apparently being the larger one. See here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

NASA photographs rectangular iceberg
22
2K
LOLCats replied
Ice shelf the ice of 20 Manhattans about to break of from Antarctica
2
82
14K
Xe4 replied
1 trillion ton iceberg breaks off from Larsen C Antarctic Ice Shelf
2
72
14K
Hermii replied
  • Locked
Ice chunk seven times the size of Manhattan collapses
38
3K
DonasaurusRex replied
Top Bottom