[PWALPOCO]

Elijah ,

Im guessing the newsworthy part is that the shelf just tore away. Up until the whole Larsen B deal it seemed to me that the original school of thought was that these big ice formations were supposed to take a long time to just slowly fizzle away , hundreds of years perhaps ?

If the normal behaviour is that the shelves are just going to split off then all that will happen is theyll break up , increasing their surface area and the rate at which they will melt into the sea. Im assuming as this was a "Shelf" it was already displacing its weight in water and therefore didnt contribute to any sea level rise.

Paul

[KevO]

an interesting new way to up the oil price!!

Scientists have discovered that an enormous ice shelf broke off an island in the Canadian Arctic last year, in what could be sign of global warming.

It is said to be the largest break in 25 years, casting an ice floe with an area of 66 sq km (25 square miles).

The chunk of ice bigger than Manhattan could wreak havoc if it moves into oil drilling regions and shipping lanes next summer, scientists warned.

"The risk is that next summer, as that sea ice melts, this large ice island can then move itself around off the coast and one potential path for it is to make its way westward toward the Beaufort Sea where there is lots of oil and gas exploration, oil rigs and shipping."

"You could stand at one edge and not see the other side, and for something that large to move that quickly is quite amazing," he said.

BBC Article

[TorrKing]

Sorry, but isn't this the same as this thread: Giant ice shelf snaps off, 'threatens oil extraction'

[KevO]

Sorry, but isn't this the same as this thread: Giant ice shelf snaps off, 'threatens oil extraction'

Sorry never saw it as it was in 'Environment' and not 'Current Energy News'. It is both I guess

[coyote]

Hard to find good pics of this thing, but here are a few:

This handout photo provided by the Universite Laval shows Universite Laval Technician Dennis Sarrazin standing next to the new ice island, the Ayles ice shelf, offshore, in the Arctic Ocean, on May 30, 2006. (AP PHOTO/Universite Laval, Warwick Vincent, HO)

So that cliff in the distance behind that guy is one edge of the ice island . Remember about how much of an iceberg is below water? Yikes.

Snapping off:



Size:



{edit:}

[Bleep]

Ice island the size of London threatens rigs (link)
By Jonathan Owen
Published: 28 January 2007

An enormous iceberg the size of central London is causing alarm among scientists, who predict that it could be on the move in a matter of months, posing a potential threat to shipping and oil rigs in Arctic waters.

[ColossalContrarian]

Maybe we should start a "Ayles ice shelf" thread. I have a feeling it'll be in the news quite a bit over the next 12-24 months...

I never knew tug boats were on standbye to corral loose ice bergs. Make sense though.

[Zardoz]

...Experts now claim the next 10 years could see massive changes in sea ice in the region. Researchers from the Canadian Ice Service have already seen average temperatures for the past few months 7C higher than they would normally expect.

How many decades into the future did most of the climate models predict it would take for this to happen?

The future is now.

[mekrob]

الحمد لله

But I wasn't aware of any rigs in Arctic waters just yet. Hmmm...Are these major producing projects yet or just exploratory wells?

[worrier]

Wouldn't it be a good idea for someone to research a way to melt or blow up wayward icebergs real quick? This problem is obviously going to get worse.

[ColossalContrarian]

Wouldn't it be a good idea for someone to research a way to melt or blow up wayward icebergs real quick? This problem is obviously going to get worse.

Evil ice burgs... we should nuke the bastards!

or

if we make the Earth really hot they'll just melt away.

[coyote]

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic25914.html

got some pics here...

[whereagles]

This PO/GW thing is starting to look like those strategy computer games where problems and wars start coming up everywhere when you screw up

[MrMambo]

...Experts now claim the next 10 years could see massive changes in sea ice in the region. Researchers from the Canadian Ice Service have already seen average temperatures for the past few months 7C higher than they would normally expect.

How many decades into the future did most of the climate models predict it would take for this to happen? The future is now.

Yes and no. Yes because the temperature change is faster than scientist have expected.

No because the climate scientists most often discuss GLOBAL average temperature changes wich are expected to be from just under 2 degrees warmer to around 6-7 degrees warmer in 50-100 years. The average global temperature has not gone up 7 degrees, only the LOCAL temperature in that specific region, and it may not remain that high during the next years (it could be a freak phenomenon this year).

The scientists do however discuss LOCAL changes too, wich can be much much bigger and go both ways. Both towards colder and towards warmer temperatures. Arctic regions are predicted to have a lot more temperature increases than the global averages. And so one can expect a whole lot more melting of ice in the arctic regions.

[Last_Laff]

Are we speaking of the same 'berg that broke off the shelf few weeks ago?

[gg3]

It's the Jewish Conspiracy, I tell you! Iceberg, Weissberg, it's all the same!:-)

Seriously though, this could start to become a major problem. And blowing up the wayward icebergs is not the answer, it will just cause the total quantity of ice to melt more rapidly, which will cool the ocean and change the salinity levels more rapidly in the affected area. This must necessarily have further ecosystem impacts and it would not be smart to "do the experiment" given how precarious things are at present.

Zardoz has it right on target with "how many decades into the future did the climate models predict this to occur?"

Captain, I think we have screwed the proverbial pooch.

[strider3700]

always remember that when something bad is going to happen you report it as likely to happen as far away as possible. If something good is going to happen you report it as likely to take place as soon as possible.

Climate change going to melt all the ice? 50-100 years from now we may start to see the effects

Iraq becoming peaceful and the war is over? Any minute now...

[Madpaddy]

gg3 wrote,

Captain, I think we have screwed the proverbial pooch.

Not at all. I see a market niche for an family targeted amphibious SUV.

[KevO]

report just out
posted from
http://transitionculture.org/

Regular readers of Transition Culture will know that I try not to make a habit of presenting depressing or distressing information, but today I will make an exception. Yesterday morning I read Carbon Equity’s The Big Melt report which is basically a review of all the literature and studies looking at what happened to the Arctic ice this summer. It does not make for comfortable reading, and indeed it adds enormous urgency to to need to reduce emissions. It argues that to speak of 2 degrees being a safe threshold is nonsense, that we haven’t yet reached 1 degree, but already the Arctic ice is melting 100 years ahead of when the IPCC predicted it would.

Full Report


In short, we are f*****

[roccman]

These posts are really the only reason I stick around here.

PO is a bore.

Police state is dead in the water.

911 is pure entertainment.

WWIII is way beyond anything I can ever plan for.

But GW is a bitch. To think of what the permian world was like 200 million years ago sends a chill straight through my spine.

This is bad...really bad.

And there is not a damn thing that can be done.

Mars anyone?