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What do you think about the Larsen C ice shelf rifting off into a huge iceberg?

by nonbel 9y ago

stouset 9y ago
The Larsen C shelf collapse has nothing to do with climate change. Even climate scientists have been adamant about this fact. As Antarctic glaciers flow out toward the ocean, they form shelves over the water. At ape point, the shelf becomes too large to sustain itself and collapses. This is what happened recently, and it's an event that would have happened no matter what.
- kenfox 9y ago
  The language that scientists have used is significantly less confident than yours (from http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/calving/ http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/calving/): > Dr Martin O’Leary: “Although this is a natural event, and we’re not aware of any link to human-induced climate change, this puts the ice shelf in a very vulnerable position. This is the furthest back that the ice front has been in recorded history." I interpret those comments as saying it's currently an open research question. Lots of popular press I've read though does leap to there being some link. I think it pays to be open minded here and consider that ocean and polar warming could have an impact on ice shelf stability.
  - _puk 9y ago
    "This is the furthest back that the ice front has been in recorded history." I'm curious; in the context of the ice front, when does recorded history begin? Are we talking, 10s, 100s, or 1000s of years?
  - strainer 9y ago
    An obvious minimum link is that the area which has melted and broke off, also coincidently happens to have elevated temps recorded and indicated by modelling. https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_antarctica.html https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_antarctic... There is still the whole "correlation isnt causation / aint necessarily so" caveat, but the correlation with AWG is obvious.
thaumaturgy 9y ago
While newsworthy and attention-getting, the consensus from scientists seems to be that this isn't really a sign of catastrophic climate change. While climate change likely played some role, it's mostly part of a natural process. See also https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060057298 https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060057298, posted to HN a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14764043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14764043

What do you think about the Larsen C ice shelf rifting off into a huge iceberg?

by nonbel 9y ago

What do you think about the Larsen C ice shelf rifting off into a huge iceberg?

The Larsen C shelf collapse has nothing to do with climate change. Even climate scientists have been adamant about this fact. As Antarctic glaciers flow out toward the ocean, they form shelves over the water. At ape point, the shelf becomes too large to sustain itself and collapses. This is what happened recently, and it's an event that would have happened no matter what.

kenfox 9y ago
The language that scientists have used is significantly less confident than yours (from http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/calving/ http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/calving/): > Dr Martin O’Leary: “Although this is a natural event, and we’re not aware of any link to human-induced climate change, this puts the ice shelf in a very vulnerable position. This is the furthest back that the ice front has been in recorded history." I interpret those comments as saying it's currently an open research question. Lots of popular press I've read though does leap to there being some link. I think it pays to be open minded here and consider that ocean and polar warming could have an impact on ice shelf stability.
- _puk 9y ago
  "This is the furthest back that the ice front has been in recorded history." I'm curious; in the context of the ice front, when does recorded history begin? Are we talking, 10s, 100s, or 1000s of years?
- strainer 9y ago
  An obvious minimum link is that the area which has melted and broke off, also coincidently happens to have elevated temps recorded and indicated by modelling. https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_antarctica.html https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_antarctic... There is still the whole "correlation isnt causation / aint necessarily so" caveat, but the correlation with AWG is obvious.

thaumaturgy 9y ago

While newsworthy and attention-getting, the consensus from scientists seems to be that this isn't really a sign of catastrophic climate change. While climate change likely played some role, it's mostly part of a natural process. See also https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060057298 https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060057298, posted to HN a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14764043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14764043