16 ms·

I think this advice which is in all reports of this event is quite tenuous: "The calving of icebergs is a natural process. ... as news of the calving spread,

I think this advice which is in all reports of this event is quite tenuous: "The calving of icebergs is a natural process. ... as news of the calving spread, many researchers were careful to note that they were not chalking it up to global warming." The falling of trees is a natural process but when they fall in a storm we don't often say to not chalk it up to the storm.

logfromblammo 9y ago
People tend to blame the last straw for breaking the camel's back, but each individual straw shares equal responsibility. When a tree falls, the rain that loosened the soil around the roots, the wind that pushed upon the end of the trunk-lever, and the beetle that damaged the bark such that the tree became less flexible are all responsible. When it comes to icebergs calving from glaciers, warming is a contributing factor, but so is a snowfall upon the glacier further up the slope. Ice above pushes ice below away from the support of land, and like many crystalline minerals, water-ice has far less strength under tension than it has under compression.
ourmandave 9y ago
If an iceberg falls in the forest, does it make a sound until someone politicizes it?
idlewords 9y ago
We don't have long enough experience with ice shelves to know what their baseline behavior is. And the effects of global warming in the Antarctic are less straightforward than in the Arctic. For example, winter sea ice extent there is increasing, not decreasing.
- strainer 9y ago
  As I understand it - the sea ice extent is a quite different matter being thin and regenerating yearly. These lost iceshelves (including Larsen B in 2001) were hundreds of meters thick. I wonder what age these shelves were and what a sustainable rate of such events would be. Without seeing such information I dont trust general statements on the events meaning. As another massive iceshelf breaks off - it really looks like an event which we could connect with more for these environmentally crucial times.
  - idlewords 9y ago
    I cited sea ice as an example of counterintuitive effects of climate change. These shelves move fairly rapidly, and will calve with or without global warming. The Ross Ice Shelf, for example, moves northwards at about 1 km/year.
    - strainer 9y ago
      I appreciate your reply but I find the argument is vague. If we are with the consensus on climate change, there is very little doubt this event is affected by it. It occurred in most warmed area of this map: http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/ODonnell1.png http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/ODonnell1.png From here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/a-brief-history-of-knowledge-about-antarctic-temperatures/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/a-brie... I dont see any sense in excluding these quite rare events from the confidence of climate change, unless we are not confident in climate change.
      - kobeya 9y ago
        TFA doesn't offer dimensions, but it does say the total area of the berg is 2,200 mi^2, which if square (overestimation given the picture) would give a depth of about 75km to this calving. The grandparent says that the ice shelf moves into the ocean at about 1km/yr. This specific calving has been going on in stages since at least the 1960's. Within the order of magnitudes of estimation, that lines up entirely with natural process that has been going on at roughly the same rate since the 60's. Climate change hasn't had a measurable effect so far, based on this limited data point. I think the scientist's quoted cautious skepticism is entirely appropriate.
        strainer 9y ago
        I just see a hastily laid out argument. The 1km/yr we have no idea what it really means, does that relate to previous centuries? or is it just the rate observed during recent times? (while global warming has already been detected) The maps show the very location of these events, raised by several degrees C since 1950. The rate of this event is quite certainly strongly affected by local temperature, which is known to be elevated due to global warming. So the event has quite certainly been strongly affected by global warming. I can conclude this very confidently because global warming is already a given for me. Only when we doubt global warming has raised the temperature of the location of these calving events does it make any sense to say, "this could be happening naturally" However fast this could happen naturally - it is happening faster due to global warming.
phkahler 9y ago
The thing is... If we wanted to not in interfere, and let the natural process do its thing, we'd be looking at the end of the inter-glacial period in the next 1000 years. After that we'd see glaciation starting to cover a lot of the northern hemisphere. Sea levels would start to drop - ultimately several hundred feet, exposing the continental shelf everywhere. All our coastal cities would be inland. Some have said that even all the CO2 we can produce won't be enough to stop the natural cycle. I wonder if it will actually speed it up a little bit. Something triggers the end of the inter-glacial and clearly we are not there yet. Therefore, I conclude that the planet was never at the steady state the climate alarmists pretend it was before humans interfered.
- bsder 9y ago
  > Some have said that even all the CO2 we can produce won't be enough to stop the natural cycle. "Some have said" -- Stop. Just stop. If you can't cite, you aren't worth debating.
- ericd 9y ago
  Nobody pretends the planet was in steady state before humans ramped up CO2 production, everyone knows about the last ice age.
  - phkahler 9y ago
    Yes, they do pretend. Sea levels have been rising for 10000 years and they act like that trend stopped and the rise from here on out is all caused by human activity.
    - ericd 9y ago
      No, they're saying that we've caused it to accelerate massively. 10k years is probably long enough for us to adapt, 50 is probably not.
dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago
People don't often argue about the existence of the storm while it's happening.

logfromblammo 9y ago

People tend to blame the last straw for breaking the camel's back, but each individual straw shares equal responsibility. When a tree falls, the rain that loosened the soil around the roots, the wind that pushed upon the end of the trunk-lever, and the beetle that damaged the bark such that the tree became less flexible are all responsible. When it comes to icebergs calving from glaciers, warming is a contributing factor, but so is a snowfall upon the glacier further up the slope. Ice above pushes ice below away from the support of land, and like many crystalline minerals, water-ice has far less strength under tension than it has under compression.

ourmandave 9y ago

If an iceberg falls in the forest, does it make a sound until someone politicizes it?

idlewords 9y ago

We don't have long enough experience with ice shelves to know what their baseline behavior is. And the effects of global warming in the Antarctic are less straightforward than in the Arctic. For example, winter sea ice extent there is increasing, not decreasing.

strainer 9y ago
As I understand it - the sea ice extent is a quite different matter being thin and regenerating yearly. These lost iceshelves (including Larsen B in 2001) were hundreds of meters thick. I wonder what age these shelves were and what a sustainable rate of such events would be. Without seeing such information I dont trust general statements on the events meaning. As another massive iceshelf breaks off - it really looks like an event which we could connect with more for these environmentally crucial times.
- idlewords 9y ago
  I cited sea ice as an example of counterintuitive effects of climate change. These shelves move fairly rapidly, and will calve with or without global warming. The Ross Ice Shelf, for example, moves northwards at about 1 km/year.
  - strainer 9y ago
    I appreciate your reply but I find the argument is vague. If we are with the consensus on climate change, there is very little doubt this event is affected by it. It occurred in most warmed area of this map: http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/ODonnell1.png http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/ODonnell1.png From here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/a-brief-history-of-knowledge-about-antarctic-temperatures/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/a-brie... I dont see any sense in excluding these quite rare events from the confidence of climate change, unless we are not confident in climate change.
    - kobeya 9y ago
      TFA doesn't offer dimensions, but it does say the total area of the berg is 2,200 mi^2, which if square (overestimation given the picture) would give a depth of about 75km to this calving. The grandparent says that the ice shelf moves into the ocean at about 1km/yr. This specific calving has been going on in stages since at least the 1960's. Within the order of magnitudes of estimation, that lines up entirely with natural process that has been going on at roughly the same rate since the 60's. Climate change hasn't had a measurable effect so far, based on this limited data point. I think the scientist's quoted cautious skepticism is entirely appropriate.
      - strainer 9y ago
        I just see a hastily laid out argument. The 1km/yr we have no idea what it really means, does that relate to previous centuries? or is it just the rate observed during recent times? (while global warming has already been detected) The maps show the very location of these events, raised by several degrees C since 1950. The rate of this event is quite certainly strongly affected by local temperature, which is known to be elevated due to global warming. So the event has quite certainly been strongly affected by global warming. I can conclude this very confidently because global warming is already a given for me. Only when we doubt global warming has raised the temperature of the location of these calving events does it make any sense to say, "this could be happening naturally" However fast this could happen naturally - it is happening faster due to global warming.

phkahler 9y ago

The thing is... If we wanted to not in interfere, and let the natural process do its thing, we'd be looking at the end of the inter-glacial period in the next 1000 years. After that we'd see glaciation starting to cover a lot of the northern hemisphere. Sea levels would start to drop - ultimately several hundred feet, exposing the continental shelf everywhere. All our coastal cities would be inland. Some have said that even all the CO2 we can produce won't be enough to stop the natural cycle. I wonder if it will actually speed it up a little bit. Something triggers the end of the inter-glacial and clearly we are not there yet. Therefore, I conclude that the planet was never at the steady state the climate alarmists pretend it was before humans interfered.

bsder 9y ago
> Some have said that even all the CO2 we can produce won't be enough to stop the natural cycle. "Some have said" -- Stop. Just stop. If you can't cite, you aren't worth debating.
ericd 9y ago
Nobody pretends the planet was in steady state before humans ramped up CO2 production, everyone knows about the last ice age.
- phkahler 9y ago
  Yes, they do pretend. Sea levels have been rising for 10000 years and they act like that trend stopped and the rise from here on out is all caused by human activity.
  - ericd 9y ago
    No, they're saying that we've caused it to accelerate massively. 10k years is probably long enough for us to adapt, 50 is probably not.

dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago

People don't often argue about the existence of the storm while it's happening.