Saturday, June 3, 2017

How to Love a Gigantic Iceberg, At Least for the Moment #Science

Probably you have heard of the biggest iceberg ever recorded and oh, gee, is it going to break off.

Moving along from that ... yes, it's going to break off, maybe within a week.  There is a however and that comes below.


This is the ice flow velocities of Larsen C in April/May 2017, from ESA Sentinel-1 data.

Credit: A. Luckman, MIDAS, Swansea University, with Copernicus Sentinel data

Science Daily:  Antarctic ice rift close to calving, after growing 17km in 6 days, latest data from ice shelf shows


That's definitely one gigantic boomer bastard of an iceberg but the interested student is invited immediately to focus on the inset which shows how much of Antarctica it includes.  When you melt all of it, as is predicted you will, that results in the 230' rise in sea levels and good-bye Florida.  The however is this iceberg is not going to do that ... but ... as always nothing is that simple.

From the article you will readily discern the evidence in support of climate change and the Rockhouse has no need or desire to refute any of it.

The nothing is that simple part is the extent to which the melting iceberg delivers high volumes of fresh water to the highly-salinated sea insofar as that affects fish populations, weather patterns, etc.  The Rockhouse does not have a citation for that aspect and you won't find immediate doom and gloom in that either.

The interested student is invited to pursue the original link and it will certainly make clear preparation needs to be made but there is no threat of do this or you will die tomorrow.

The really interested student is invited to review science regarding large deposits of methane from natural gas and frozen in place by the ice.  Release of that methane has truly devastating climatic consequences since, the last time it happened, Earth froze from pole to pole in the Pleistocene Extinction.


The Socratic advisory has been to know yourself but the extension of it is know your world and, thus, the invitations to pursue further.

No comments: