Huge Arctic Ice Shelf Breaks Off 736
knarfling writes "CNN is reporting that a chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic. Just last month 21 square miles of ice broke free from the Markham Ice Shelf. Scientists are saying that Ellesmere Island has now lost more than 10 times the ice that was predicted earlier this summer. How long before the fabled Northwest Passage is a reality?"
Never, hopefully. (Score:5, Interesting)
The day the NWP is a reality is the last day of Canada as an independant country.
I'm not ready to give up my home and native land that quick. But how am I to stop US forces, or worse, Russian or even Chinese, should they set their eyes on the NWP?
Re:From TFA... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because it is not reforming as ice. Over the last 100 years, pieces of the shelf would break off and then other ice would reform and take its place. But over the last few years, ice is breaking off and it is too warm for other ice to form into the shelf.
One of the effects is that fresh water environments were formed on the shelf. When the shelf breaks off, salt water rushes in and kills all the organisms that grew there. Some haven't been studied well, and the chance to study them has been lost.
Another affect is more political. If enough ice breaks off, there will be a NorthWest passage where ships can sail around the North of Canada.
On July 30 of this year, scientists predicted that a chuck of ice would break off. The chunk that actually broke off was 10 times the size predicted. Not sure why the big difference, but that is a bit scary to me. What is it that these scientists missed? Were temperatures warmer than expected? or did they just make a bad judgement with the info they had?
What percentage is that? (Score:2, Interesting)
So arctic ice extent varies (seasonally) between about 4 and 13 MILLION square kilometers. I'm guessing it's at the minimum for the year (it is the end of summer after all) so lets say 4,000,000 km^2. Hmmm 100km^2.... what is that about 0.003%. Why is this news?
I much prefer the story of the Polar Defense Project! (Kayak guys who are stuck in ice 1000km from the pole).
Cheers,
_GP_
Re:Confused (Score:3, Interesting)
Large blocks of ice thousands of years old are breaking off and move along the ocean currents until they melt. During the winter months, the surface water freezes. Given that 90% of an iceberg is underwater, wouldn't this mean that the water itself is warming and not the atmosphere?
Re:The Climate Change Guys Will Have a Field Day.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The climate change proponents will probably try to make a bigger deal out of this than it really is. I take the stance that I'm not educated enough on Earth's climate to have a valid opinion on climate change, but I do find it strange that they never mention the tropics have been colder than usual these past few years. I live in Mackay, Queensland, and this year's winter was probably the coldest I've seen here (though I have only been here eight years).
You aren't educated enough. The climate models call for more extreme climate shifts both colder and warmer with the over all average being warmer. Also the tropics change the least and the Arctic regions change the most. The models have been around for years and so far the biggest errors have been underestimating the rate of change. There will be years when the changes will reverse simply due to yearly variations it's the general trend that has changed. Saying you had a colder winter so global warming is wrong is like saying it's warmer in August so winter cooling is a myth. Weather patterns are measured decades, hundreds of years and thousands of years not months and years. Yearly changes are meaningless when talking about long range trends.
Re:1906 (Score:5, Interesting)
Normally I don't reply to people who reply to my comments, but I really must know:
Why in the world would you start your quest to prove me wrong on a corrolary point by quoting an article about a man-made structure constructed some 2 million years after the geologic event I was referring to?
Re:Never, hopefully. (Score:5, Interesting)
This simply is not so. Have no fear my friend, because the NWP represents enormous value to Canada. Those who want to use it will pay handsomely, and this in turn will pay for Canada's defence of her Northern sovereignty. Those who argue that it is an International waterway will be the first to cry for help from Canada when their oil tanker hits an iceberg, and it will be Canadians who will be left with with another Exxon Valdez disaster. So Canada will mightily defend her territory, and it is in the best interests of the U.S., Russia, China and others that Canada be happy, well paid, and a willing participant in the movement of goods through the North.
As for the manifest destiny bluster from the South - ignore it. The U.S. has neither the time, massive resources, or manpower to have a prayer of ever annexing Canada. What they gonna do? Put one cop in every town 500 miles apart? They can barely manage tiny Iraq, let alone the second largest country on earth.
Re:The Climate Change Guys Will Have a Field Day.. (Score:3, Interesting)
So what? We know for a fact when the dinosaurs roamed the earth several degrees warmer than it is now. We also know the average CO2 level was quiet a bit higher.
We know that the earth goes through periodic ice ages, does it not make sense that it also goes periodic warm cycles? or is such a fact beyond the ability of reason? Ice shelves routinely break off. We know this is true. how because they aren't millions of years old but only thousands.
If they melt and reform over the course of 100 thousand years and the human race is what 40,000 years old who are we to judge what is the acceptable rate for melting ice caps?
We Also know for a fact that ice ages tend to happen in a hurry. The initial ice forms quickly, grows slowly, and then melts. would it not make sense for the warm cycles to follow a similar pattern?
Re:1906 (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it arrogant to condem the entire species for the logical errors of a few dirty, dirty hippies!
Kidding about the dirty hippies part, but I do have a real point: the debate about global warming is non-scientists using non-scientific arguments to advance their non-scientific prejudices reguardless of truth.
Emphasis on the non-science part there. Just want to clarify that it's not that no one is trying to prove cause and effect, it's that most of the noise has nothing to do about hypothesis testing.
I also don't know about calling it arrogance. We know CO2 soaks up heat and we know there's a lot of CO2 being released. That right there to me justifies taking preventative steps. Of course, there are a powerful few very opposed to this. The resulting controversy is very predictable. It would be nice to pre-empt that with hard science, but it remains to be seen if proving it wrong or right is possible. It would also be great if we could just deal with it once we know for sure, but of course we have reason to suspect that would be a foolish way to go.
The flaw in the species that I see is the inability to see things as more than a dichotomy. It seems like too many people have boiled it down to "Do we save the environment or the economy," been unable to answer that, and settled for which advocates do they like better, the hippies or the lawyers?
Re:1906 (Score:3, Interesting)
Europe can get their Taiwanese crap even cheaper -- at closer to the same price North Americans enjoy now.
1969: The SS Manhattan (Score:5, Interesting)
From http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/01/30/DefendNorthwestPassage/ [thetyee.ca]:
If the US resumes that path, and there's no evidence they will right now, it'll lead to a fundamental change is the perceived "special relationship" between Canada and the US. Americans would be surprised at the change in attitude that would result.
However, I believe things are quite a bit different now compared to 1969. We have Russia making macho territorial claims all over the place and Canada (plus Denmark) are in the best position to legally defeat those claims, not the US.
Also, there might be some recognition in Washington that treating the NWP as the high seas could easily result in an environmental mess of biblical proportions because, for example, dumped oily bilge water in the cold Arctic water doesn't disperse like it does in warmer climates. A large oil spill up there would be an unmitigated disaster.
Finally one would assume the US would like to know, via Canadian tracking of ships in it's territorial waters, who's going where. Canada would have some rights to actually board and inspect ships which is much superior to what the US could find out if the passage was international waters in which case they would be limited to satellite, radar, or airborne tracking.
Re:1906 (Score:1, Interesting)
We also know that water vapor soaks up 25 times as much heat as CO2, and that there's a lot more of it, especially over the oceans. Of course, the Global Warming Industry doesn't mention this, because it would make people wonder how much effect CO2 really has, except over cold deserts.
Re:1906 (Score:5, Interesting)
Spoken like a person who's never read a paper on the subject.
People like the GP divide the world into a few groups when it comes to belief regarding climate change:
1) "Sheeple" who believe the circumstantial evidence we have proves that global warming is a real and likely man-made phenomenon.
2) Clever, educated people who listen to people with no background in science quote scientists (trying to collect data or refine existing models) out of context. These people learn from their TV/Radio/Blog gods that global warming is a liberal conspiracy. See #1.
3) Scientists, who are either duped by the liberal universities and left shaking their hockey stick plot of T vs. t, or who are ignored by the mainstream (did I mention liberal?) media when they show that global warming doesn't seem real.
This actually reminds me a lot of the creationists' response to evolution. They seem to think that any new evidence describing something previously unknown to the scholarly community is proof that evolution is a broken theory.
I think that it would be better to divide the world (only in our minds) into:
1) People who don't have the background or interest to know whether global warming is real or not, but who are generally pretty strongly polarized one way or the other.
2) People who do have a pretty good idea how likely it is that global warming is a problem and that it's man-made. These people are generally ignored by those in group 1, though they're quoted ad nauseum by both sides of the "debate" held by that group.
Re:Never, hopefully. (Score:3, Interesting)
This simply is not so. Have no fear my friend, because the NWP represents enormous value to Canada. Those who want to use it will pay handsomely, and this in turn will pay for Canada's defence of her Northern sovereignty.
Absolutely, but realize that the NWP is of extreme value, and unlike say the Panama Canal or the tip of South America, there are substantially more powers in a position to have a material impact on it (Russia, Japan, Korea easily, other European powers possibly). So while Canada will certainly make hay and stake their claim, it will be a target of strategic political or even military ambitions. I doubt it would actually come to war, but things would become much more interesting for Canada when they find themselves standing on the world stage holding something like the NWP.
Re:1906 (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. The Global Warming Industry was my rather sarcastic term for those people who are pushing for extreme measures not because they believe in them but because they expect to profit.
Re:Never, hopefully. (Score:4, Interesting)
If the U.S. really wants to send ships through the Northwest Passage without Canada's say-so, it won't have to ask nicely. The same goes for China.
Uh, not at all the same situation for China. It's a little bit like a lot of families. They might squabble with one another, but they'll visit real fury on anybody else outside who attacks a family member.
If China -- or even Russia -- tried this, nothing would make the U.S. and Canada resolve their differences faster.
Re:1906 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Aaaargh! Mission Accomplished! You WiN! (Score:3, Interesting)
In twenty years, we'll all look back on this and laugh, like we do now when we read old articles about how Africanized killer bees are going to kill everybody in the US.
There's nothing wrong with projecting possible outcomes given known quantities. It's one of our strengths as a species, but untoward fear is certainly unnecessary. Ice ages happen like clock-work, so yeah, 'weather' does cover it, I suppose.
It's a shame those Africanized killer bees weren't up to the job of resisting the various causes of colony collapse disorder which is currently killing farms. I guess that IS sort of funny, albeit in an ironic kind of way.
-FL
Re:1906 (Score:3, Interesting)
Why are alternative ideas labeled conspiracy theory only when in relation to global warming and 9/11?
He wasn't talking about any scientific theories, he was rambling how any alternative scientific theories are being suppressed by some vast CONSPIRACY.
Re:Here comes the sun! (Score:3, Interesting)
Hah! We are now well overdue for solar cycle 24 and haven't had a sunspot for a month. Our theory is simple. If there are no sunspots, the planet cools, otherwise, it gets warmer. Fancy that, the planet has actually cooled somewhat this year, despite the increases in CO2.
Then why doesn't simply temperature go up and down in nice (aprox.) 11 year cycles? Maybe your theory is too simple?
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:1906 (Score:3, Interesting)
We also know that water vapor soaks up 25 times as much heat as CO2, and that there's a lot more of it, especially over the oceans. Of course, the Global Warming Industry doesn't mention this, because it would make people wonder how much effect CO2 really has, except over cold deserts.
Of course they do. It's just that water vapour is a feedback not a forcing.
If we had a magic wand and could remove every molecule of water vapour from the air it would be back within weeks (IIRC more than 60% recovered in 14 days with 99% recovery in two months - you can download the models and try it yourself if you're interested)
If we had a magic wand and could remove every molecule of CO2 from the air we would freeze. Temperatures would start to drop. Water vapour would start to condense out. Temperatures would drop more in a vicious feedback.
Eventually, vulcanism would release CO2 back into the atmosphere. Over the course of a few tens or hundreds of millenia we'd start to warm back up. Eventually, with the correct orbital forcings and solar cycle we'd enter another temperate era. But it could be hundreds of millions of years before we get there.
And the same thing happens if you add CO2 to the atmosphere. It causes a small increase in temperature which causes an increase in water vapour which causes a futher increase in temperature until eventually we reach a new equilibrium.
Historically, climate change has occurred over centuries to millenia. Water vapour reaches equilibrium so quickly that it cannot possibly be a cause of the climate change although it does amplify it.
Climate change is now occuring over years to decades, hundreds of times faster than it ever has before. Even now, water vapour is staying in equilibrium.
So yes, climate scientists do take account of water vapour, it's just that it's not a forcing so is irrelevant to the initial state of their model. Even if they get the water vapour completely wrong at the start of the model run, it will correct itself so fast that it cannot have an effect on climate, only on weather, and climate scientists aren't interested in the weather.
Tim.
Re:How is Global Warming still a controversy? (Score:2, Interesting)
There is scientific evidence to suggest that as the climate is (naturally) warming, more CO2 is being released from the seas - if anything, this particular research has been covered up in favour of the politically-motivated idea that man *must* be the cause of Global Warming.
Wow. You couldn't be more wrong. Any scientist anywhere will tell you that the ocean is a carbon sink - absorbing CO2. Only after the Ocean gets warmer does it release CO2.
The point is that the Ocean wouldn't being emitting CO2 if it wasn't absorbing so much of it from man made sources in the first place. As you mention An Inconvient Truth, its this absorbtion that is wrecking havok among coral reefs and creating huge storms.
In essence, man-made CO2 is partly absorbed by the ocean, heating it and making it acidic, and then released back into the atmosphere with whatever CO2 wasn't absorbed. It is still man-made CO2, it just went through the ocean first.
Al Gore, while he mentioned a number of previous Ice Ages, noted that the CO2 levels directly related to temperature, and that at no time in 650,000 years did CO2 levels ever go higher than 300 ppmv (parts per million by volume). The historical high is 280 ppmv.
In 1960, there was a concentration of 315 ppmv. Today we sit at 385 ppmv. There is no projection that it will slow down or decrease, but rather increase much more. By 2010 we expect to break 400 ppmv. But who needs words when you have a graph? [ldesign.com]
Oh, and whenever these articles get opened up for discussion, why is the fact that ice is getting thicker in many areas of the North and South pole conveniently overlooked?
Where's those facts? I dare you to link them. But you wont, because they don't exist.
The only dispute is over the "average ice density" in the Arctic, but no one disputes the reduction of ice of the caps, or Arctic Shrinkage [wikipedia.org]. The before and after pictures are shocking.
As for Antarctica, both NASA [nasa.gov] and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) [antarctica.ac.uk] disagree with you.
Politically, there is a strong case for promoting MMGW which would stop the development of the Third World, thus ensuring that Third World imports into rich countries remain cheap, thus keeping the populations of the rich countries fat, dumb & happy. And because the Third World countries remain poor, more people live in poverty and die younger from diseases that are curable. In actuality, MMGW is an *anti-Green* viewpoint.
I personally love this part. A conspiracy theory that portrays Big Business and the Rich as the minds behind global warming. Yes, they are the ones who will profit by stopping the development of third world countries.
Yes, its not like Big Business would want to maximize their profit margin by cutting out as much environmental regulation as possible and decrease overheads so they exploit countries better. And its not like they have been buying scientists and congressmen trying to lobby against global warming at all by calling it a hoax! No, those were other people...
Do you listen to yourself?
As for developed countries and population, they tend to limit themselves without regulation; the U.S. average family now has 1.9 children as compared to a generation ago where they average was 4 to 5 kids.
Please, read a book or accredited source, not just typical zealous conservative rhetoric.
Re:How is Global Warming still a controversy? (Score:1, Interesting)
Because satellite data shows the planet is cooling, while the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to increase. This is inconsistent with your hypothesis that man-made CO2 is causing the planet to warm.
When observation is inconsistent with theory, it is theory that must be revised. Eppur si muove.
Re:1906 (Score:4, Interesting)
. Any heretics are branded "deniers" and derided as backwards, retarded, and ignorant.
Perhaps I've meet a different gaggle of global warming supporters than you, but I've never been branded as "backwards, retarded, and ignorant" for at least doubting the anthropocentricity of global warming (note the term "doubting" over denying). I've actually had insightful conversations based on the possibility of being certain of long range trends, as it relates to the global warming issue.
I doubt that you find much of what you describe in GW circles, IF you approach them with respect, and honest doubt (not the popular dogmatic denial, which has no place in science). Arguing that they are wrong (but you of course are right) because of the uncertainty of science is rather absurd, wouldn't your statement apply to yourself equally? Its rather hard to take such things serious, and mockery is generally deserved.
The one issue with deniers (not doubters) that I've noticed is that they HAVE to be right, and keep bringing up the same disproven examples again and again, then get mad when no one listens to them. Denial of anthropogenic global warming has become almost a religious dogma, over a well reasoned scientific hypothesis, which astounds me. What is there in that statement that allows one to vest so much personal interest, and identity? How the hell did this become a "wedge" issue like other historical moral/religious ones like Abortion, creationism, and the treatment of homosexuals?
Yes, you see some of this on the other side, mostly among lay people. But it seems more concentrated in the denier side.
My personal view is that I don't know. I personally don't have much an opinion on whether it is anthropogenic, or not. I support measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and other pollutants, though because it is better to be safe than sorry. If they are correct, and we do nothing, the consiquences are rather grave. If they are wrong, and we do something, there is very little consequences (and even some fringe benefits).
Ah... the glory of pragmatism.