Animation of iceberg B-15A on NOAA DMSP imagery
Animation looks like it's a big file!!
More here....
longjack
Posted on 12/17/2004 2:35:26 PM PST by Graybeard58
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- A remnant of the largest iceberg ever recorded is blocking Antarctica's McMurdo Sound, threatening tens of thousands of penguin chicks with starvation and cutting off a supply route for three science stations, according to a New Zealand official.
The iceberg, known as B15A, measures about 1,200 square miles, said Lou Sanson, chief executive of the government scientific agency Antarctica New Zealand.
He called it "the largest floating thing on the planet right now" and said U.S. researchers estimate it contains enough water to supply Egypt's Nile River complex for 80 years.
It is so big it has blocked wind and water currents that break up ice floes in McMurdo Sound during the Antarctic summer, which begins later this month. The U.S. McMurdo Station and New Zealand's Scott Base are located on the sound. Italy's Terra Nova base is nearby.
The iceberg is in the path of four ships due to arrive in Antarctica in a month with fuel and food for the three stations. Scientists are looking into solutions, including breaking an 80-mile path through the ice.
While the situation is a growing concern, the bases are not immediately in danger of running out of supplies, Sanson said.
The same cannot be said for the newborn Adele penguins.
Tens of thousands of the chicks could starve in coming weeks because the ice build-up in the sound has cut off their parents' access to waters where they catch their fish, Sanson said.
Currently there is "more fast (blocked) ice in McMurdo Sound than we've ever recorded in living history for this time of year," Sanson said.
The penguins are important to scientists as markers of environmental change, such as global warming. The iceberg is threatening two of four colonies in the area that scientists have been studying for 25 years.
One is on Cape Royds, where 3,000 breeding pairs of Adele penguins now face a 112-mile round trip to bring food to chicks at their nesting grounds. The parents cannot survive such a long journey without eating much of the food they have gathered for their young, Sanson said.
Penguins carry the food for their young in a pouch in their necks and eat it themselves if they are hungry.
enough.
"Penguin researchers are predicting that the annual hatching is pretty certain to fail," Sanson said, meaning most chicks will die.
Likewise, scientists fear that only about 10 percent of the 50,000 breeding pairs of Adele penguins at nearby Cape Bird will rear a chick this season, Sanson said. Adult penguins there face a 60-mile round trip across the ice to reach open water and food.
New Zealand research scientist Peter Wilson said the ice blockage "is a very serious event for these colonies." Penguins breed for the first time at three years of age.
Wilson expected the Cape Royds chicks would hatch but die of starvation and the bulk of the Cape Bird chicks could die.
"It could all fail ... and more than 50,000 souls will have gone west again," he said, referring to penguins.
Wilson, New Zealand's project leader for the study of the four Adele penguin colonies in the region, said he was sure all the colonies would survive -- though their numbers could decline by up to 70 percent.
Antarctica New Zealand is working with the United States and Italian Antarctic programs on alternatives for receiving vital fuel supplies for their science bases in late January.
A U.S. icebreaker, fuel tanker and cargo ship plus an Italian cargo vessel are due to deliver a year's supply of fuel and food at that time, he said.
The alternatives are to break an 80-mile channel through the pack ice to reach Winter Quarters Bay on the McMurdo Sound coast -- or offload the fuel and other supplies on the ice edge, pumping fuel through temporary lines several miles to storage tanks, he said.
All Antarctic bases have contingency supplies of a year's food and fuel, Sanson said.
The iceberg is located between McMurdo Sound and Franklin Island to the south and is moving north toward the sound at about 1.2 miles a day. The concern is it will stick on the Ross Ice Shelf, which forms part of the sound and stay there, causing still more problems.
The iceberg is a remnant of one that broke off the Ross Shelf in 2000. That one measured about 4,400 square miles, the size of the Caribbean island of Jamaica, and was the largest iceberg ever recorded.
I think the ice is over 200 yards thick. It'll take ages if you want to pick through it with a beak.
Haul it someplace where they have chronic water shortages or to Japan for bar ice.
What do they call that big frigid piece of ice, Hillary?
Translation: Global warming is causing the sound to freeze over.
If it gets any warmer, the whole thing will freeze solid. Conversely, if it gets colder, everything will melt.
The iceberg is 200 yards thick. I thought the ice must have about the same thickness everywhere in that region because the iceberg didn't elevate over the other ice it broke away from.
I started by thinking of Nukes, but explosives would be ok, ANFO by the shipload.... I'd buy the DVD, too.
/john
Tow it to California, for the Klamath area.
In a related story, several companies are bidding on a contract to build an enormous pair of ice tongs that will be used to remove the iceberg from McMurdo Sound.
Yes, but what we could end up with is Europe with a Siberian winter and the lower portion of Northern Hemisphere baking. After all, it isn't global cooling that is causing that ice to melt.
The Japanese buy water from glaciers and icebergs at premium prices. I suggest we Freepers latch onto this berg and sell the super pure H2O in Nippon and to CA yuppies. We'll be rich! Now, how to latch on and tow the thingie?
Probably all ships of the US navy together wouldn't be enough to pull it away.
What is the difference between
Sea Ice and Land Ice?
(Did you even know there was a difference?)
The polar regions are covered by ice of two different forms, land ice and sea ice. Land ice refers to glaciers, icebergs, and of course, the two great ice sheets of the Antarctic continent and Greenland. Land ice forms slowly over time from the yearly accumulation of snow, and becomes quite thick. Sea ice is ice that freezes out of sea water, usually as an extension of Land Ice. The Arctic Ocean and the Southern Ocean which surrounds the continent of Antarctica is composed almost entirely of sea ice, which ranges in thickness between 1-5 meters.
To learn more about sea ice and land ice, click on the links below.
http://oceans-www.jpl.nasa.gov/polar/
Have the U.S. congress meet atop the ice berg - All the hot air would surely melt it.
Darn! Whattan idea killer you are! How about a small nuke engine on the berg? Naaaahhh! Too risky and how do we steer it? OK, I give up.
Wunnerful, just wunnerful. Right before Christmas, Freepers are going to pull a large scale Dunkirk and relieve that iceberg.:)
Animation of iceberg B-15A on NOAA DMSP imagery
Animation looks like it's a big file!!
More here....
longjack
Isn't this the iceberg formed by the hotspot (aka volcano) that was on the seafloor?
Animation of iceberg B-15A GPS data on USGS LANDSAT-7 imagery
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