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News Science

Giant Iceberg to Collide with Glacier 423

Posted by CowboyNeal from the snow-plowing dept.
OECD writes "NASA reports that a massive 100-mile-long iceberg is on a collision course (movie) with a floating glacier near the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica. NASA scientists expect a collision to occur no later than January 15, 2005."
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Giant Iceberg to Collide with Glacier More

Giant Iceberg to Collide with Glacier

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  • Oooh! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @05:44AM (#11319074)
    Cold Fusion?
  • Welcome to Iceburg, Drygalski. Population 0.

    • Re:Iceburg? (Score:3, Funny)

      by cwebb1977 ( 650175 )
      Hey, I'd like to live there. Cool and quiet, lots of snow... just like Sweden without all the hot blonde babes.
      • I don't get it- the main difference between living on the iceberg and living in Sweden is the absence of the hot blonde babes on the iceberg, and YOU CHOOSE THE ICEBERG?!?!

        "Wow, Sweden is great, but it would be even better without all the gorgeous women. I'm off to live on an iceberg!"

    • Re:Iceburg? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by OECD ( 639690 )

      Welcome to Iceburg, Drygalski. Population 0.

      Doh! I finally get a story on slashdot, and I have a typo. Well, I feel a little better that someone at NOAA did the same thing here [noaa.gov].

      And who the heck modded you offtopic? They didn't R the FA, obviously.

  • Oh Crap... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @05:46AM (#11319086)
    Roland Emmerich is going to make another movie....

    God DAMN IT.

  • Wait.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrRuslan ( 767128 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @05:49AM (#11319096)
    That's the day after tommorow...well it almost is.

  • Iceburg? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by anno1a ( 575426 )
    What's an iceburg?
  • a city in greenland?

  • Need a better view (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Albinoman ( 584294 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @05:55AM (#11319114)
    Things like this dont happen too often. Surely someone can sacrifice a few bucks to set up a camera in the front row. Maybe it could be some inspiration for those CGI effects in Hollywood.

  • apocalypse , now? (Score:5, Funny)

    by OffTheLip ( 636691 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @05:55AM (#11319118)
    tsumanis, icebergs, mudslides, giant asteroids on a collision course with earth, windows exploits. armegeddon?

    • Re:apocalypse , now? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not armageddon, Global Warming.

      Which, IIRC threatens to bring at least a couple of the horsemen of the Apocolypse. Famine and Death being the two I immediately think of. Not to worry about Armageddon itself, though. That battle will occur seven years after the believers are taken away.

      So, no, this is not Armageddon. However, it may be a sign of the Apocolypse (the non-Larry Wall kind). Get to know some Christians, if they are all missing at once, prepare for 3.5 years of good times, then 3.5 years of
      • prepare for 3.5 years of good times, then 3.5 years of hell on earth.

        Ok, then this cannot be it. We've just had 4 years of hell on earth, and due to the election outcome in the US we're bound for another 4 years of the same.

    • Strangely enough, Paul Krugman of the New York Times has an opinion column [nytimes.com] today entitled "The Iceberg Cometh", which I just happened to go to after seeing this slashdot heading. I was confused at first, wondering why he would care about such an iceberg collision, until I read the article.

      No, his column isn't about icebergs per se, but about the administration's attempts to paint the social security situation like it's on a collision course w/ an iceberg.

      So anyway, offtopic yada yada (except for the ti

    • Re:apocalypse , now? (Score:5, Funny)

      by da3dAlus ( 20553 ) <dustin.grauNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @08:37AM (#11319575) Homepage Journal
      Nope. Just Tuesday.
    • tsumanis, icebergs, mudslides, giant asteroids on a collision course with earth, windows exploits. armegeddon?

      Don't forget the local root exploit in the Linux kernel. That's a big sign of the apocalypse. Still no released patch kernel though for 2.4.x series though... odd. I guess they expect us to run a release candidate on production servers to fix this bug.

  • IcebUrgs?

    So Slashdot has evolved beyond mere typos on the editor's comments and now sports typos on the headlines...

    I've always found interesting that, in English, two words that are spelled differently can be pronounced the same.
    • It's even more interesting that two words which are spelled the same can be pronounced differently.
      Example: "Have you read this? No, I'll read it tomorrow."

    • Re:Offtopic (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
      I've always found interesting that, in English, two words that are spelled differently can be pronounced the same.

      Or in this case, a Dutch word (berg) like a German (burg).

  • Where's Bruce Willis and a nuke when you need them? The poor penguins must be saved from the iceberg!
    • Bruce is obeying the prime directive and not interfering. Who knows being crushed by this iceberg this could lead to a race of super flat, 2 dimensional penguins who will take over the world.

  • This is important because... (Score:5, Informative)

    by polysylabic psudonym ( 820466 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @06:18AM (#11319201) Journal
    Aside from looking cool and being important to penguins (the two things that the article seems to focus on) this can affect things that are actually important.

    The ice tongue that the iceberg is going to hit is the ocean end of a glacier. If that is knocked off by the collision that could be like pulling the cork from a bottle. It may cause the glacier to discharge into the more rapidly than it otherwise would, raising sea levels.

    http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg1842 47 96.100
    • Aside from looking cool and being important to penguins (the two things that the article seems to focus on) this can affect things that are actually important.

      The ice tongue that the iceberg is going to hit is the ocean end of a glacier. If that is knocked off by the collision that could be like pulling the cork from a bottle. It may cause the glacier to discharge into the more rapidly than it otherwise would, raising sea levels.

      Clickable link [newscientist.com].
  • Iceberg dead ahead!!
  • Quick! Contact Bruce Willis!

  • Ooooh 300 million tons (Score:5, Interesting)

    by asliarun ( 636603 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @06:39AM (#11319257)
    (been a long time since i did some math)

    From the site:-
    "The B-15A iceberg is a 3,000-square-kilometer (1,200-square-mile) behemoth"

    Pulling figures from the nether region, i'm assuming the berg to be 100mts high. This would give us:-
    Surface area = 3000 sq. km = 3000 x 1000 x 1000 = 3 x 10^9 sq. mt.
    Thus, volume of berg = 3 x 10^9 x 100 = 3 x 10^11 cubic mts.

    Now, i know that roughly, 1 cubic meter of ice (water) = 1000kg.

    Thus, weight of berg = 3 x 10^11 x 1000 = 3 x 10^14 kgs.

    That's 3000000,000,00,000kgs. = 3000000,000,00 metric tons = 300000000 kilotons = 300000 million tons!

    If my math is correct, then oooh boy, this is going to be one heck of a fender bender.

  • In case of slashdotting, Mirror here (Score:5, Informative)

    by appleLaserWriter ( 91994 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @06:44AM (#11319267)
    http://www.nasa.gov.nyud.net:8090/vision/earth/loo kingatearth/ice_berg_ram.html

  • iceberg coming... (Score:5, Funny)

    by geeklawyer ( 85727 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:05AM (#11319327) Homepage Journal
    at half a mile an hour.

    Quick! Gather up your children and amble away as though your life depends on it.

  • Wonderful... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Paiway ( 842782 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:29AM (#11319390)
    Now all I need is a martini the size of Poland.

  • I presume the thing (Score:3, Funny)

    by Skiron ( 735617 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:30AM (#11319393)
    ...has a woman driver?

  • In other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by rfunches ( 800928 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:31AM (#11319398) Homepage
    ...penguin refugees flee to Chile.
  • Giant Icebug to Collide with Slashdot. Orthographical pieces probably will fall in the comment ocean, causing changes in its pH, leaving users with a cold feeling the day after tomorrow.

  • "Iceburg?" - reminds me of a joke... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @09:05AM (#11319679)
    There's this bar - and there's a Chinese guy and a Jewish guy who find themselves seated next to each other a couple of nights. Things are going pretty good until one night after a few too many, the Jewish guy hauls off and decks the Chinese guy.
    The Chinese guy picks himself up and says "What the hell was that for?!"
    The Jewish guy snaps "That was for bombing Pearl Harbor."
    "Pearl Harbor? Pearl harbor was bombed by the Japanese!"
    The Jewish guy shrugs "Chinese, Japanese, what's the difference?!"
    The next night they find themselves at the bar again, and after a snootful, the Chinese guy hauls off and decks the Jewish guy.
    He picks himself up and shouts "What the hell was THAT for?"
    The Chinese guy says "THAT was for sinking the Titanic!"
    "Are you nuts? The Titanic was sunk by an iceberg?!"
    "Yeah, well - iceberg, Goldberg - what's the difference?!"
  • How long before those urban survivalist fantasists start believing that a hummer has lost it as the ultimate in urban cool, and start looking for a nuclear powered icebreaker to keep on their moorings. Tsunami proof, oil shortage proof, sea level rise and wandering berg proof,probably a good place to be when an asteroid strikes, and almost as economical as the average SUV. I guess the Russians have a few to sell to raise some foreign currency.

  • I'll have to put... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cytlid ( 95255 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @09:24AM (#11319756)
    ...$20 on the glacier. I think it can take that little guy.
  • The B-15A iceberg is a 3,000-square-kilometer (1,200-square-mile) behemoth that has a history of causing problems. It is the largest fragment of a much larger iceberg that broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000. Scientists believe that the enormous piece of ice broke away as part of a long-term natural cycle (every 50-to-100 years, or so) in which the shelf, which is roughly the size of Texas, sheds pieces much as human fingernails grow and break off.>
    Part of the natural cycle for this. Yes, t
  • An honest question- how is this related to aeronautics or space?

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