Tuesday - January 11, 2005

Antarctic Icebergs and Envro-Weenies

I’ve spent a few weeks in New Zealand while on my way to and from Antarctica to do seasonal work It’s a beautiful country and I enjoyed myself.  So when I see news articles about it, I click to read them.

Which is why this article caught my eye. The salient points are these:

1.  this summer is one of the coldest in decades
2.  February, August and December are notorious for having strong south to southwest winds
3.  Antarctica is due SOUTH

The article is about iceberg sightings off New Zealand and I could tell by reading this that scientists were chomping at the bit to attribute all this to global warming.

Yet they casually seem to ignore more facts:

1.  iceberg sightings were far more common in the 1800s because the Panama Canal was not yet built so ships HAD to take that route
2. cloud cover obscures more recent sightings of icebergs from the air and satellite

I’m just a layman but when you have chunks of the Ross Ice Shelf the size of Connecticut (4500 square miles) break off and it becomes mobile, you can fully expect to see MANY icebergs resulting from it and they will head north.

Oh, and try this at home.  Make a sheet of ice 18x48 inches and about 1/4 inch thick.  (how you do this is your problem so just play along, OK?) Set it on top of a table.  (Be quick now or it will start to melt unless you are playing inside a walk-in freezer.) Now, start sliding the 18 inch side over the lip of the table.  You know what’s coming, right?  If you keep doing so eventually the weight of the ice suspended over the edge will break off.  Hey, I didn’t invent gravity!

But that’s exactly what’s going on in Antarctica.  The Ross Ice Shelf comes off the continent and hangs suspended over the ocean.  Eventually, it, too, will break off chunks.  And last I checked, the Shelf is about the size of Texas, something like 450 miles wide by 560 miles long (260,000 square miles).  A chunk the size of Connecticut is relatively insignificant.

One more thing these moonbats won’t talk about:  the Ross Ice Shelf is now the same size it was in 1911.  So if we were making the earth hotter all last century, how come the ice mass kept increasing?

NOTE:  I almost posted this yesterday but held off.  Then later in the day I came across this fascinating story.

That HUGE Connecticut sized iceberg mentioned above?  Well, it’s broken up a bit and the biggest chuck is the size of Rhode Island.  It is also on the move and due to crash into the Drygalski Ice Tongue just somewhat northwest of McMurdo Station on Ross Island.  If you want more info on life in Antarctica, click here. I remember when it first broke off how the scientists were all excited.  Then it lodged itself against a couple of islands in a north-south attitude and the biggest fear of the National Science Foundation was what would have to be done should that iceberg break free and its northern tip move counterclockwise and lodge against the continent proper.  That would block all access to McMurdo and force an evacuation of the station and possibly the South Pole since no re-supply could take place by ship.  (Icebreakers don’t stand a chance against a 100 mile long, 10 mile wide, 1500 foot (plus) thick berg)

Anyway, the article basically confirms what I say above:

Scientists believe that the enormous piece of ice broke away as part of a long-term natural cycle (every 50-to-100 years, or so) in which the shelf, which is roughly the size of Texas, sheds pieces much as human fingernails grow and break off.

Posted by Ranting Right Wing Howler     on 01/11/2005 at 06:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Environment •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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