6 ms·

More info here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124105970 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1241059... In summary, B9B,

by andreyf 17y ago

More info here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124105970 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1241059... In summary, B9B, a 97-kilometer long iceberg, crashed into the Mertz Glacier Tongue in the Australian Antarctic Territory on Feb. 20, 2010. The collision created a new 78-kilometer long iceberg. Those two are now drifting around, chilling out. Complicated ocean currents will most likely be affected, possibly depriving huge parts of the ocean of oxygen, interrupting millions of biological feedback systems we know nothing about, shifting them to newfound equilibria, making this little ecosystem of ours a lot more livable for obscure branches of bugs, and a lot less livable for us. tl;dr: We're all going to die.

scotty79 17y ago
Couldn't you just pin it in place with hundred steel ropes or something?
- pmjordan 17y ago
  "The icebergs, weighing 860 billion tons and 700 billion tons respectively, are located in water over the Antarctic Continental Shelf, Young said." I think you'd need more than a hundred steel ropes to hold 860 billion tons of ice in place.
  - jmaygarden 17y ago
    Question: Where does an 860 billion ton iceberg go? Answer: Wherever it wants!
  - ubernostrum 17y ago
    Asimov had a short story once in which spacecraft propulsion was dependent on water as fuel, and a colony on Mars (in response to an anti-space-exploration political movement on Earth) started harvesting huge chunks of ice from the outer solar system, wrangling them into Martian orbit with webs of high-strength cabling (and using some of the ice in the process as fuel to move it all around) and letting them crash down in uninhabited areas (where, under Mars' lower gravity and frigid temperatures, they'd hold together enough to be mined for water).
  - scotty79 17y ago
    I don't suggest hanging it on strings just pinning it. Hundred was also a symbolic (a lot) rather than real number.
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    It's MASS is 860 billion tons and 700 billion tons respectively, its weight is 0 tons and 0 tons respectively other wise they would have sunk. They're NEUTRALLY BUOYANT. With no ocean currents and no winds I could move them around with a pocket fan. All the question here is whether you can anchor the icebergs against the forces applied by ocean currents and the wind. The fact that these icebergs weigh nothing due to their buoyancy is the problem here, no one would have given a shit if they sank.
- andreyf 17y ago
  That sounds like one of those "it's harder in practice" type of things - both from a political (who is going to fund it?) and engineering standpoint.
- idlewords 17y ago
  Steel only has five hundred times the tensile strength of ice.
gjm11 17y ago
But, of course, Phil Jones wrote some rude emails and used the words "trick" and "hide", therefore global warming isn't real and poses no threat even if it is. So, nothing to worry about.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- antidaily 17y ago
  You don't understand… I've seen it. I've seen it happening. The ocean is dying, the plankton is dying… It's people! Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of people. Soon, they'll be breeding us like cattle—for food! You gotta tell 'em! Listen to me, Hatcher! You gotta tell 'em—SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!
  - Eliezer 17y ago
    I'll tell you what you gotta tell 'em! SOYLENT GREEN IS THERMODYNAMICALLY INEFFICIENT!
    - cousin_it 17y ago
      Yeah, that makes as much sense as machines using humans for energy in the Matrix. For a good time, see this Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/b5gz7/an_american_physicist_is_calling_for_hollywood/c0l22xs http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/b5gz7/an_american_p...
- jmaygarden 17y ago
  What does this have to do with global warming? The new iceberg was dislodged by a collision. Nothing in the article indicates temperature as a factor.
  - hendler 17y ago
    [Edit: scientists are cautious about saying this specific event is caused by warming tempuratures - but overall they are not cautious about linking melting ice shelves to overall warming.] Can every article related to global climate change site every other article? Ice caps are getting smaller and breaking up more rapidly over the last 30 years... because the average temperature of the earth is rising. There is a remote possibility that all climate change science is bad because some climate change science is bad. But the more likely scenario is that most climate change science is good science, and observations like giant icebergs are relevant evidence that is easy for most to understand - so they are used as examples. http://nsidc.org/quickfacts/icebergs.html http://nsidc.org/quickfacts/icebergs.html http://nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.html http://nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.html http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201002/2831331.htm?desktop http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201002/2831331.... ""We don't see any evidence at the moment, we don't have enough information to be able to say any influence of climate change," he said." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/hundreds-of-icebergs-brea_n_369367.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/hundreds-of-iceberg... ""Whole ice shelves have broken up," he said, as temperatures have risen in Antarctica, where they are up as much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) in the past 60 years. But he cautioned against linking the appearance of the bergs in New Zealand waters to global warming: The phenomenon depends as much on weather patterns and ocean currents as on the rate at which icebergs are calving off Antarctic ice shelves."

by andreyf 17y ago

scotty79 17y ago

Couldn't you just pin it in place with hundred steel ropes or something?

pmjordan 17y ago
"The icebergs, weighing 860 billion tons and 700 billion tons respectively, are located in water over the Antarctic Continental Shelf, Young said." I think you'd need more than a hundred steel ropes to hold 860 billion tons of ice in place.
- jmaygarden 17y ago
  Question: Where does an 860 billion ton iceberg go? Answer: Wherever it wants!
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  Asimov had a short story once in which spacecraft propulsion was dependent on water as fuel, and a colony on Mars (in response to an anti-space-exploration political movement on Earth) started harvesting huge chunks of ice from the outer solar system, wrangling them into Martian orbit with webs of high-strength cabling (and using some of the ice in the process as fuel to move it all around) and letting them crash down in uninhabited areas (where, under Mars' lower gravity and frigid temperatures, they'd hold together enough to be mined for water).
- scotty79 17y ago
  I don't suggest hanging it on strings just pinning it. Hundred was also a symbolic (a lot) rather than real number.
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  It's MASS is 860 billion tons and 700 billion tons respectively, its weight is 0 tons and 0 tons respectively other wise they would have sunk. They're NEUTRALLY BUOYANT. With no ocean currents and no winds I could move them around with a pocket fan. All the question here is whether you can anchor the icebergs against the forces applied by ocean currents and the wind. The fact that these icebergs weigh nothing due to their buoyancy is the problem here, no one would have given a shit if they sank.
andreyf 17y ago
That sounds like one of those "it's harder in practice" type of things - both from a political (who is going to fund it?) and engineering standpoint.
idlewords 17y ago
Steel only has five hundred times the tensile strength of ice.

gjm11 17y ago

But, of course, Phil Jones wrote some rude emails and used the words "trick" and "hide", therefore global warming isn't real and poses no threat even if it is. So, nothing to worry about.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
antidaily 17y ago
You don't understand… I've seen it. I've seen it happening. The ocean is dying, the plankton is dying… It's people! Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of people. Soon, they'll be breeding us like cattle—for food! You gotta tell 'em! Listen to me, Hatcher! You gotta tell 'em—SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!
- Eliezer 17y ago
  I'll tell you what you gotta tell 'em! SOYLENT GREEN IS THERMODYNAMICALLY INEFFICIENT!
  - cousin_it 17y ago
    Yeah, that makes as much sense as machines using humans for energy in the Matrix. For a good time, see this Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/b5gz7/an_american_physicist_is_calling_for_hollywood/c0l22xs http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/b5gz7/an_american_p...
jmaygarden 17y ago
What does this have to do with global warming? The new iceberg was dislodged by a collision. Nothing in the article indicates temperature as a factor.
- hendler 17y ago
  [Edit: scientists are cautious about saying this specific event is caused by warming tempuratures - but overall they are not cautious about linking melting ice shelves to overall warming.] Can every article related to global climate change site every other article? Ice caps are getting smaller and breaking up more rapidly over the last 30 years... because the average temperature of the earth is rising. There is a remote possibility that all climate change science is bad because some climate change science is bad. But the more likely scenario is that most climate change science is good science, and observations like giant icebergs are relevant evidence that is easy for most to understand - so they are used as examples. http://nsidc.org/quickfacts/icebergs.html http://nsidc.org/quickfacts/icebergs.html http://nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.html http://nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.html http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201002/2831331.htm?desktop http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201002/2831331.... ""We don't see any evidence at the moment, we don't have enough information to be able to say any influence of climate change," he said." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/hundreds-of-icebergs-brea_n_369367.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/hundreds-of-iceberg... ""Whole ice shelves have broken up," he said, as temperatures have risen in Antarctica, where they are up as much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) in the past 60 years. But he cautioned against linking the appearance of the bergs in New Zealand waters to global warming: The phenomenon depends as much on weather patterns and ocean currents as on the rate at which icebergs are calving off Antarctic ice shelves."