Climate Change Catchment Thread

[Soldier of FORTRAN]

A catch-all thread for climate change.


In Antarctica, an ice shelf half the size of Indiana is about to calve a chunk the size of Delaware.

Larsen C - 48,600 km²
Chunk - 5,000 km²

(click to show/hide)

Indiana - 94,321 km²
Delaware - 6,452 km²

British researchers monitoring the crack in the Larsen C ice shelf say that only about 12 miles now connect the chunk of ice to the rest of the continent.

"After a few months of steady, incremental advance since the last event, the rift grew suddenly by a further 18 km [11 miles] during the second half of December 2016," wrote Adrian Luckman in a statement Thursday by the MIDAS Project, which is monitoring changes in the area.

The crack in question has been growing for years and is now a total of roughly 70 miles long. When the fissure reaches the far side of the shelf, an iceberg the size of Delaware will float off, leaving the Larsen C 10 percent smaller.

...

Ice shelves are important because they provide a buffer between the sea and the ice that sits on land, in this case on the Antarctic Peninsula. Without a healthy ice shelf, water from melting glaciers can flow straight to the sea, raising the sea level.

It's normal for the front of an ice shelf to crack and break off, known as calving. But it's unusual for that to happen faster than the ice shelf can refreeze.

Some scientists worry that the missing piece will destabilize the whole ice shelf. A smaller ice shelf, Larsen B, completely splintered in a little over a month in 2002, a process that started with a similar crack. Another ice shelf, Larsen A, had disintegrated a few years before.

"Larsen C may eventually follow the example of its neighbour Larsen B," wrote Luckman.

"If it doesn't go in the next few months, I'll be amazed," he told BBC News.

...

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/06/508536211/a-really-big-crack-in-an-antarctic-ice-shelf-just-got-bigger

Relevant photos:

[lonely moa]

That photo of the ice sheet made me nostalgic for my first trip south.  I was working  on the other side of the WAIS divide.  Depending on where the chunk(s) drift, it could be a local economic boost for some.  When a large chunk of the Ross shelf floated close enough to Dunedin,  there was an upsurge in iceberg tourism.

This is very cool news.

[2397]

Wish we had a second Earth to run climate change experiments on, instead of this one.

[lonely moa]

Wish we had a second Earth to run climate change experiments on, instead of this one.

Venus

[Tassie Dave]

Wish we had a second Earth to run climate change experiments on, instead of this one.

Venus

You beat me 

[2397]

Venus isn't very much like Earth, other than in size. Barely rotates, barely has a magnetic field, isn't a binary planet, and has about 225 000 times as much CO2 as we do.

So at least we'll never be that, there isn't anywhere near that much carbon or equivalent around to be released. But if all the ice goes, that could be bad enough. With the sea level rise being the least of our concerns.

[Soldier of FORTRAN]

GLOBAL, Annual:


Note the little line starting 2017.



ARCTIC, January through July:

[lonely moa]

And of course these are measurements of extent, not volume.  Some one must be measuring this.

[The Latinist]

And of course these are measurements of extent, not volume.  Some one must be measuring this.

Nasa had a nice animation recently showing the decline in older, thicker ice over recent decades.  The result is significant reduction in volume.

Of course, it's always good to point out that the melting of such ice does not lead to sea-level rise.

[Desert Fox]

And of course these are measurements of extent, not volume.  Some one must be measuring this.

Nasa had a nice animation recently showing the decline in older, thicker ice over recent decades.  The result is significant reduction in volume.

Of course, it's always good to point out that the melting of such ice does not lead to sea-level rise.

However, it does reduce the amount of sunlight reflected back into space.

[2397]

And destabilizes the polar vortices.

[The Latinist]

I'm not sure why people are responding to my post with things loss of arctic sea ice does cause.  I neither said nor implied that it had no effects; merely that it was worth pointing out that it does not have that particular effect.

[lonely moa]

Of course, it's always good to point out that the melting of such ice does not lead to sea-level rise.

Not when that sea ice is holding land based, below sea level glacial ice sheets from disappearing into the sea, read Greenland and the WAIS.

[wastrel]

I'm not sure why people are responding to my post with things loss of arctic sea ice does cause.  I neither said nor implied that it had no effects; merely that it was worth pointing out that it does not have that particular effect.

Just because you are aware of every possible indication of disappearing sea ice does not mean every single piece of information regarding it is apparent to every other reader of the thread. 

I'm not quite sure why you seem to take offense when people add to your point, but just because people want to further the conversation with pieces of information they know but have not yet been offered, does not mean that the people posting are claiming some deficiency in your knowledge.

[Soldier of FORTRAN]

And of course these are measurements of extent, not volume.  Some one must be measuring this.