Re: Massive ice shelf collapsing off Antarctica

On Mar 26, 8:37=A0pm, thro...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Wayne Throop) wrote:
> : "Martha Adams" <mh...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> : It could be an ice shelf if it's as large as your
> : livingroom floor; but for the news reporting it's
> : getting, I expect it's larger than that. Are there
> : any *numbers* around about the size and depth of
> : that ice shelf; about how much the ocean goes up
> : if it actually does go in?
>
> IIRC, reading the URLs from this thread, it was 160 square miles.
> However, sea level won't go up at all, no matter how think it was,
> since it was ice supported by water. =A0In the larger picture, it's not
> absolutely horrific, or all that more ominous than other signs that've
> been around for a while (receeding glaciers as reported by satellite
> surveys, thawing tundra in alaska, polar bears in difficulty, etc),
> just ... more ice involved than in other such recent occurances.
>
> Basically, it just exposes a bunch of liquid water that that's been
> overlaid by ice for the last more-than-a-hundred-years.

Which will absorb a lot more sunlight than the ice that used to cover
it, and as Joel points out, the absense will allow more ice to break
away until the ice on land starts sliding into the water.

Climate Change deniers are taking the same approach to problems a lot
of Americans have for decades.  Don't believe anything bad is
happening, don't think about it, don't talk about it, don't do
anything about it, and hope the bad crap doesn't happen until after
you're dead.