Vast Antarctic Ice Shelf on Verge of Collapse (Wilkins Ice Shelf)

LiveScience.com on Yahoo ^ | 3/25/08 | Andrea Thompson

[Bubba_Leroy]

The region where the Wilkins Ice Shelf lies has experienced unprecedented warming in the past 50 years, with several ice shelves retreating in the past 30 years. [snip] "We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years, but warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing it to break up," Scambos said.

So what they are saying is that an ice sheet that formed after the medieval warming has now started breaking off. And this is different from how ice sheets have formed and then broken off for the past million years because ... ?

In related news, parts of the Midwestern United States have experienced unprecedented warming in the past 2 days, with several snow drifts retreating in the past day. "We believe this snow has been in place for a few days, but warm air is causing it to melt."

[FreedomPoster]

>>It is also important to notice that the next fundraising go-round is to be held in Bangkok at the end of this month until Apr. 4th.

Interesting. Do you have a link on that?

[Reeses]

1. The ocean is almost certainly above 32 degrees off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula in late summer. 2. Once broken free of the coast, currents will carry the icebergs to more northern latitudes where they will melt faster.

1. Below is a map of ocean temperatures. Is it not late summer in the Antarctic right now? The ocean off the entire peninsula is below the freezing point of freshwater, but is sometimes above the freezing point of saltwater.

2. That's great the ice bergs move north because melted ice is needed in the northern latitudes where most people live. There are many options to contain the melted water, for example a giant baggie or by pumping cold from the inside of the ice berg to maintain an ice shell.

[JustDoItAlways]

Here is a real-time satellite image of the area in question (bottom right corner) from NASA'a Aqua satellite (as of yesterday March 24th).

There are no cracks visible. It just looks like a frozen wasteland. I've zoomed in with the higher resolution and there is nothing visible.

You can zoom into 250M resolution here yourself if you want to investigate at higher resolution.

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2008084/crefl2_143.A2008084210501-2008084211000.250m.jpg

[Freedomsfriend]

This article has satellite photos

Giant Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080325-antarctica-photo.html