City-Sized Ice Shelf Breaks Free Of Antarctica 249
LeadSongDog writes "Germany's TerraSAR-X satellite is showing that the Antarctic's Pine Island ice shelf has calved a 'berg of 720 square kilometres, 'the size of Hamburg.' Angelika Humbert says 'The Western Antarctic land ice is on land which is deeper than sea level. Its "bed" tends towards the land. The danger therefore exists that these large ice masses will become unstable and will start to slide.' The article extrapolates that 'If the entire West Antarctic ice shield were to flow into the Ocean, this would lead to a global rise in sea level of around 3.3 meters.' Goodbye Florida.
The size of Hamburg? (Score:3, Insightful)
Darn metric system! How many Libraries of Congress is that equivalent to?
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
>> The Western Antarctic land ice is on land which is deeper than sea level.
Umm.. isn't it impossible to have land that isn't deeper than sea level?
If it's possible anywhere on Earth, it's surely possible on a continent that can have a "western" part despite covering all geographic longitudes.
Sea Level Map (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dooomed (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty much, yeah. Even if this iceberg doesn't get us, and even if climate change won't, the by-now ingrained habbit of putting fingers in your ears and shitposting to drown out unpleasant facts effectively nullifies your intelligence, thus making it impossible to consider or react efficiently to any situation. Since intelligence is our sole evolutionary advantage, and since climate chance denial has made pretending stupidity fashionable, we're pretty much doomed.
Still, at least it provides a fascinating case study about self-delusion.