Wilkins ice shelf breaking away?

an Antarctic ice shelf the size of Jamaica has detached itself from the antarctic peninsula.

"Computer models have long predicted that decreasing sea ice should amplify temperature changes in the northern polar region. Julienne Stroeve, from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union that this process was under way.
Arctic ice cover in summer has seen rapid retreat in recent years."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7984054.stm

Yeah, read this today as well, looking bad. What's worse the divergence from the range of the standard deviation, it appears to be following a trajectory.

it looks to me like there will be no ice at all in the Arctic in 15 years time - 8 million square kilometers will have melted.

Assuming the same thing is happening in the Antarctic, then we're talking about 22 million sq km of ice melting.

Does this mean that I may never get to bang Oprah? Are we doomed really soon, or will I have time to get to Harpo Studios?

C'mon fred, we've always been doomed. I might as well take up smoking now, or eat loads and get really fat.

.........Errr.

I don't know about the arctic but the ice in antarctica is about 1.6 km thick. so that's a 60 metre sea level rise = kent and norfolk are fucked for a start I think.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm

bloody hell, that's fucking massive, simply horrifying.

I take it you watched Al Gore's "An incovenient truth" the other night as well eh Fred, I found it fantastically informative yet depressing at the same time that our Planet is in such a bad way :(.

I don't know about the arctic but the ice in antarctica is about 1.6 km thick. so that's a 60 metre sea level rise = kent and norfolk are fucked for a start I think.

to put it in presceptive, if ice the size of greenland melted, then you'd see an 20 feets increase.

I take it you watched Al Gore's "An incovenient truth" the other night as well eh Fred, I found it fantastically informative yet depressing at the same time that our Planet is in such a bad way :(.

having study geography extensively, I find his documentary to be fairly accurate.

thinking about it, I would've become a geologist had it not been for the extensive fieldwork that was stolen (it was in a laptop bag) when I was doing geography A-levels, still pissed me off ever since.

i'm not sure the extrapolation holds all the way to 60metres

current prediction is 1.3 metres in 2009.

I'm sure it'll be fine anyway.

6 metres fred, not 60!!!!

ok. 1.3 metres but:

"As yet the contribution to sea level rise of the Antarctic is small, but the trend of warming and ice sheet collapse is causing concern[/U][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise#cite_note-46"][/URL]"
"The [U]West Antarctic ice sheet, lying at an average height of about 1,800 metres, holds enough ice to boost global sea levels by up to six metres."

6 metres fred, not 60!!!!

60 meters is if everything melts. it's the accelleration that is a "new" phenomenon.

kent is still fucked at 2 metres, norfolk at 6 metres, check out this interactive map i just found

http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=51.0345,-0.9943&z=9&m=2

If the ice that is floating anyway melts- you won't notice any change in sea level- cos there won't be any.

obviously.

Its when the land based ice starts to go, thats when sea levels will suffer.

also some scientists maintain that the levels are going to be far more affected thant predicted due to glacial meltage that would occur before the loss of the polar ice.

so realistically, the data is too easily manipulated to mean anything, and both sides can argue for days without concluding anything.

my 2p.

Gah.... I was rewording this and then backspace pissed me off:

my points are described better in all links above.

Arctic/ floating ice shelf melting will have no effect on sea level.
Antartic/glaicial melting= fuckage.
however, that temp change would have to be extreme and predictions for that are less imiment than the graph suggests.

furthermore, there are some indicators of the temperature cycle of the planet which have been interpreted by some as leading to a non-man influenced warming, and by some to be indicative that we are heading for a period of rapid cooling.

Its not a science that has lost its monetary subjectivity yet, and the ghost of that is very powerful indeed when it comes to understanding+ interpreting hte data presented.

gaia will sort it's self out
it is a dynamic equilibrium
this change will lead to other changes which will bring things back into balance

don't forget we had ice 1km deep over birmingham as recently as 10,000 years ago nobody complained then

Its when the land based ice starts to go, thats when sea levels will suffer.

When land based ice melts the sea level will go down. Isostacy is why.

we will plumit into a dark ica age and see more freak weather occour than ever on record. this stuff take an age but us that live a healthy life will see a measurable difference. the scary thing is there is no reason for it all.
Do we really need to upgrade our TV every 6 months, buy cheaper more technology advanced cars from China, all have iphones and mp3 players.?!

but it's too late. there is not way we can reverse this trend, they will prefer to invest tons of energy and resource to try and create something that absorbs cardbon as apposed to doing the right thing and respect the earth.

Any one read Jared Diamonds rise and fall of civilisation? he shows how this raping of the earth has resulted in the downfall of civilisations for thousands of years. but this time we have joined the world up and done it on a larger scale.

this is really dread news

Do we really need to upgrade our TV every 6 months, buy cheaper more technology advanced cars from China, all have iphones and mp3 players.?!

but it's too late. there is not way we can reverse this trend, they will prefer to invest tons of energy and resource to try and create something that absorbs cardbon as apposed to doing the right thing and respect the earth.

+1 greasy

gaia will sort it's self out
it is a dynamic equilibrium
this change will lead to other changes which will bring things back into balance

don't forget we had ice 1km deep over birmingham as recently as 10,000 years ago nobody complained then

I've never met an 'environmentalist' who is worried about the fate of the planet itself - I think all are intelligent enough to know that life will go on for millions of years after humans are gone.
It's often one of those arguments used by 'green-sceptics' to belittle and patronise 'environmentalists' by implying that their views are somehow naive and childish, ironically enough usually reflecting a lack of knowledge on their part in the first place.
What people *are worried *about is that the planet will become uninhabitable for humans and all the life-forms we are familiar with, which for some people is a valid worry, and for some it's not.

What the detachment of the ice-shelves show, and what they emphasise, is that climatic change can happen much more quickly than geological events.
Previous ice-ages have always begun very very gradually, but have ended incredibly rapidly in geological terms (i.e. 100's of years, not 1000's) (read about Dansgaard-Oeschger events)and the current period is proving to have a warming rate far faster than any other historic warming period studied.
So this event and other similar occurences are understandably worrying for those people who are worried about the fate of the next few generations of humans and other life-forms.

When land based ice melts the sea level will go down. Isostacy is why.

Isostacy is the rebound of the land caused by the release of pressure caused by removal of the ice mass.
Isostatic processes take millions of years (i.e. Norway is currently undergoing isostacy - at a rate of about 1-10mm per year) - sea-level rises caused by land-ice melting takes 10's of years, so there will be a sea level rise if this happens.
The isostatic offset will be immeasurable.

Isostacy is the rebound of the land caused by the release of pressure caused by removal of the ice mass.
Isostatic processes take millions of years (i.e. Norway is currently undergoing isostacy - at a rate of about 1-10mm per year) - sea-level rises caused by land-ice melting takes 10's of years, so there will be a sea level rise if this happens.
The isostatic offset will be immeasurable.

+1

buy hill, sell hil,l prosper

It was proved in court that Gore's 6 or 7 metres claim was bullshit. Even the IPCC estimates no more than 59cm by 2100. That's just enough to go over wellies, and the people of Norfolk wear them all the time anyway ;-)

If the temperature warms enough to melt ice in the Antarctic, does it not also warm enough to evaporate more seawater?

It was proved in court that Gore's 6 or 7 metres claim was bullshit. Even the IPCC estimates no more than 59cm by 2100. That's just enough to go over wellies, and the people of Norfolk wear them all the time anyway ;-)

If the temperature warms enough to melt ice in the Antarctic, does it not also warm enough to evaporate more seawater?

If the ice in the Antarctic ice caps were to melt it would produce enough water to raise sea-levels by 70m; likewise if the Greenland ice cap were to melt it would produce sufficient to cause a 7m rise - these are simple volumetric equations, and as such are accepted as facts.
What was disputed, as detailed in your post, was whether any of this *would occur by *2100, and the consensus was that it would not - but if they were to melt at any time in the future, those measurements would produce the stated volume of freshwater.

As to temperature rises causing evaporation - the residence time of a drop of water in the atmosphere can be measured in days. The residence time of a drop of water in the oceans is measured in years.
Similarly, the hydrological cycle is a closed system, so evaporation would make little or no difference to the quantity of water in the oceans, as is the case now.
More evaporation would occur, but only as an infinitesimally small proportion of the available water, so, if in theory the caps did melt, sea-levels would undoubtedly rise.
There would be more evaporation (but not that much!), there would then be more rain and snow, and then temperatures would drop, leading into a cold spell. This is the positive feedback system that stems from the current rise in temperatures.