Posted on 07/30/2008 7:24:53 PM PDT by Libloather
Huge chunk snaps off storied Arctic ice shelf
Break marks latest in erosion that has whittled 9,000 square kilometres down to 1,000 over past century
JESSICA LEEDER
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
July 29, 2008 at 3:39 AM EDT
A four-square-kilometre chunk has broken off Ward Hunt Ice Shelf - the largest remaining ice shelf in the Arctic - threatening the future of the giant frozen mass that northern explorers have used for years as the starting point for their treks.
Scientists say the break, the largest on record since 2005, is the latest indication that climate change is forcing the drastic reshaping of the Arctic coastline, where 9,000 square kilometres of ice have been whittled down to less than 1,000 over the past century, and are only showing signs of decreasing further.
"Once you unleash this process by cracking the ice shelf in multiple spots, of course we're going to see this continuing," said Derek Mueller, a leading expert on the North who discovered the ice shelf's first major crack in 2002.
Dr. Mueller was part of a team monitoring ice along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island last April that discovered deep new cracks - 18 kilometres long and 40 metres wide - on the edge of Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, a 350-square-kilometre mass of ice that joins tiny Ward Hunt Island to the bigger Ellesmere. The cracks indicated a split was likely coming.
"It may weaken over time; it may melt away slowly, then all of a sudden you pass this threshold," Dr. Mueller said. "It's like a bar of soap. If you use the soap over and over again, it gets thinner and thinner. Then all of a sudden, it could break.
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
Didn’t they find an underground volcano under it?
Good! All that damned ice gets in the way of the “Big Oil” drilling rigs.
Send it South and I’ll buy the Scotch!
Oh no! Not the “storied” shelf!
oops...wrong thread...
The human body is regulated at 96 degrees Fahrenheit,change that by a couple degrees and you have real problems. The earth too is a regulated system, but it is being interfered with by us.
How do you get through to those kinds of skulls full of mush?
“It may weaken over time; it may melt away slowly, then all of a sudden you pass this threshold,” Dr. Mueller said. “It’s like a bar of soap. If you use the soap over and over again, it gets thinner and thinner. Then all of a sudden, it could break.”
Is this the ‘Bar-Soap’ hypothesis?
LOL
Send them a recession. When they have to work for their food, they’l wise up. Not until then.
With a 1/4” drill bit.
I believe that was the North Pole.
Soon there will be more surfing beaches!
>> With all that nasty ice out of the way, it will be so much easier to get to the 80 billions barrels of oil under the Arctic ocean.
Not only that, but with an ice-free Arctic Ocean it’ll be easier to ship oil (and other stuff) around between our west coast and Europe.
A volcano? Where it's always cold? Gedoudahea...
I think the good Dr. Mueller drops the soap quite a bit.
if it’s not the size of Rhode Island, it aint huge! :)
At one point in the not-too-distant-past, ice covered everything north of about Iowa. Why don’t we consider that the correct amount of ice and try to get back to that point?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.