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Antarctic ice shelf Larson C is near its breaking point

Unitedwestand13

Unitedwestand13

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A huge chunk of ice in Antarctica’s ice shelf that’s the size of Delaware is about to break off.

The saga of the Larsen C crack is about reach its stunning conclusion. Scientists have watched a rift grow along one of Antarctica’s ice shelves for years. Now it’s in the final days of cutting off a piece of ice that will be one of the largest icebergs ever recorded.

It’s the latest dreary news from the icy underbelly of the planet, which has seen warm air and water reshape the landscape in profound ways.

The crack has spread 17 miles over the past six days, marking the biggest leap since January. It’s also turned toward where the ice shelf ends and is within eight miles of making a clean break. There’s not much standing in its way either.

“The rift has now fully breached the zone of soft ‘suture’ ice originating at the Cole Peninsula and there appears to be very little to prevent the iceberg from breaking away completely,” scientists monitoring the ice with Project MIDAS wrote on their blog.



The breakup is sure to be a spectacle both awe-inducing and horrifying. The iceberg on the verge of splitting off is estimated to be the size of Delaware, covering an area of 1,930 square miles. That’s equal to 10 percent of the ice shelf’s total area.The growth follows reports from early May that the crack across the ice shelf had sprouted a branch, further underscoring how unstable the ice is becoming. Ice shelves float over water and essentially act as doorstops that hold back the vast Antarctic ice sheet.
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Hard to imagine an iceberg the size of deleware being considered normal.

https://weather.com/science/environment/news/larsen-c-crack-iceberg-global-warming
 
Yea if only we had more protections to slow this inevitable thing for happening.
Then we'd be talking about it in a couple years instead of now.
 
While this is not good news the dictator of the USA put the world in a bad spot today all because he is stupid.
 
Does the OP think measures that just limit CO2 emissions in the atmosphere <the Paris Accord, for example> will be sufficient to prevent the ice floe from breaking off?
 
cabse5 said:
Does the OP think measures that just limit CO2 emissions in the atmosphere <the Paris Accord, for example> will be sufficient to prevent the ice floe from breaking off?
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Probably.

The indoctrinated don't deal with facts, or science very well.
 
cabse5 said:
Does the OP think measures that just limit CO2 emissions in the atmosphere <the Paris Accord, for example> will be sufficient to prevent the ice floe from breaking off?
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Do you think one trip to the gym will turn into Mr. Universe? The Paris Accords are like a commitment to keep hitting the gym. Meanwhile, conservatives insist we should just stay on the couch and keep shoveling bon-bons into our fat faces.
 
GhostlyJoe said:
Do you think one trip to the gym will turn into Mr. Universe? The Paris Accords are like a commitment to keep hitting the gym. Meanwhile, conservatives insist we should just stay on the couch and keep shoveling bon-bons into our fat faces.
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Shows how little you know and that you are highly indoctrinated.
 
flogger said:
How do you know that it isn't ? Its not like our record of such events goes back very far after all
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The size is not really the issue, it's the magnitude of the ice shelf breakup.

The glaciers behind it seem to be speeding up when one of these shelves collapses, and for these shelves in Antarctica, that hasn't happened for tens of thousands of years.

Since we can directly measure the speed of other glaciers, it's pretty clear that these events, the breakup, haven't happened on this scale in thousands of years (4000 for Larsen A, over 10,000 for Larsen B,probably much longer for this recent Larsen C breakup)

But that's just scientists speaking- I'm sure a random anonymous poster like you has much more cogent analysis.
 
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Threegoofs said:
The size is not really the issue, it's the magnitude of the ice shelf breakup.

The glaciers behind it seem to be speeding up when one of these shelves collapses, and for these shelves in Antarctica, that hasn't happened for tens of thousands of years.

Since we can directly measure the speed of other glaciers, it's pretty clear that these events, the breakup, haven't happened on this scale in thousands of years (4000 for Larsen A, over 10,000 for Larsen B,probably much longer for this recent Larsen C breakup)

But that's just scientists speaking- I'm sure a random anonymous poster like you has much more cogent analysis.
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So do the scientists have psychic knowledge of what went on before our current records of such events began then ? Its a slow day so I'll respond to this :roll:
 
flogger said:
So do the scientists have psychic knowledge of what went on before our current records of such events began then ? Its a slow day so I'll respond to this :roll:
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No. It's science.

Only the uneducated think it's 'psychic knowledge'.
 
Threegoofs said:
Stability of the Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula during the Holocene epoch : Abstract : Nature
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We infer from our oxygen isotope measurements in planktonic foraminifera that the Larsen B ice shelf has been thinning throughout the Holocene
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OK. It has chosen now to break away. And?

Still well done for finding some sort of relavent science. Just need to make the connection from it to some sort of trouble and you will have presented some sort of case for something.
 
GhostlyJoe said:
Do you think one trip to the gym will turn into Mr. Universe? The Paris Accords are like a commitment to keep hitting the gym. Meanwhile, conservatives insist we should just stay on the couch and keep shoveling bon-bons into our fat faces.
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good analogy
 
Tim the plumber said:
OK. It has chosen now to break away. And?

Still well done for finding some sort of relavent science. Just need to make the connection from it to some sort of trouble and you will have presented some sort of case for something.
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Demands references.

Gets them and then demands more.

It's an ever rotating merry go round with you.

I could provide you with more (IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) , but when I do, you whine about it.
 
GhostlyJoe said:
Do you think one trip to the gym will turn into Mr. Universe? The Paris Accords are like a commitment to keep hitting the gym. Meanwhile, conservatives insist we should just stay on the couch and keep shoveling bon-bons into our fat faces.
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Using the gym analogy, maybe one should exclusively work on quad exercises to become Mr. Universe??? Like the Paris Accord???
 
Threegoofs said:
Remember... this is the guy who disagrees with the NAS and the Royal Society because....apparently they don't know science as well as him.
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I seem to be better equipped to employ logic, apparentely...
 
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