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Wilkins sheet breaking up

Postby Penguin » Thu Feb 19, 2009 5:20 am

Due to popular demand, now ONLY SPANISH! (Since some people thought that other source was suspect, Im so sorry! Use a translator then!)

The spanish original here (was also reported in our major finnish newspaper today) -
http://es.noticias.yahoo.com/3/20090217 ... 0110a.html

Una plataforma de hielo de 14.000 kilómetros cuadrados se desprende de la Antártida


Un sector de 14.000 kilómetros cuadrados -superficie equivalente a dos veces el tamaño del País Vasco- de la plataforma de hielo Wilkins se ha desprendido y fragmentado en la Antártida como consecuencia del calentamiento global. "Los gigantescos icebergs en los que se ha descompuesto esa área helada comienzan a dispersarse por el Océano Austral", señala el Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), que cuenta con un equipo de expertos en la zona a bordo del buque de investigación oceanográfica "Hespérides". Seguir leyendo el arículo

Estos científicos, que trabajan en el marco del proyecto ATOS, analizan el impacto del colapso sobre el ecosistema del Mar de Belinghausen (al oeste de la península antártica). Precisamente, han observado cómo el frente de hielo de Belinghausen se fundía 550 kilómetros en dos semanas. Los investigadores dicen que las temperaturas del agua son extraordinariamente cálidas en esta región.

Jordi Dachs, jefe científico de la campaña ATOS, explica que "hay evidencias de una producción biológica muy elevada en la zona donde se están recibiendo los hielos liberados. Por un lado, la presencia de fauna es muy abundante, con la mayor concentración de ballenas yubarta y focas leopardo que hemos encontrado hasta el momento. Además, hemos detectado concentraciones muy bajas de CO2 en el agua marina, lo que sugiere que el aumento de penetración de la luz y los materiales que liberan los icebergs al fundirse fertilizan el océano".

Asimismo, según cuentan los investigadores, el desprendimiento y fragmentación del enorme sector helado producirá el consecuente aumento del nivel del mar.

La plataforma Wilkins es una gran superficie de hielo sobre el mar situada al suroeste de la península antártica, a una distancia de unos 1.600 kilómetros del continente sudamericano. En los últimos 50 años, la Antártida ha experimentado el mayor aumento de temperatura registrado en el planeta: 0,5 grados centígrados por década.

http://es.noticias.yahoo.com/especiales ... lobal.html
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Postby Ben D » Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:54 am

Of course it is a much anticipated event, the break up so far as I understand it, occurs every year about this time near the end of the southern summer.

Here is the RI thread on the break up of the Wilkins Ice Shelf from last year,... Antarctic shelf 'hangs by thread' in which I drew attention to the 'clockwork' nature of climate change based on the seasons. It's not rocket science.
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Postby wintler2 » Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:05 am

Ben D wrote:Of course it is a much anticipated event, the break up so far as I understand it, occurs every year about this time near the end of the southern summer.


Obviously your 'understanding' was made up on the spot.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad plate of permanent floating ice on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula, about 1,000 miles south of South America. In the past 50 years, the western Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the biggest temperature increase on Earth, rising by 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degree Fahrenheit) per decade. NSIDC Lead Scientist Ted Scambos, who first spotted the disintegration in March, said, "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 a break-up." ..

http://www.nsidc.org/news/press/20080325_Wilkins.html
This is a joint press release from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder; the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), based in the United Kingdom; and the Earth Dynamic System Research Center at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) inTaiwan.
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Postby Ben D » Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:36 am

wintler2 wrote:Obviously your 'understanding' was made up on the spot.


Well hi my friend wintler2, actually it was due to my understanding that I posted that it was an annual event last year. Hence I anticipated that it would happen again at this time in 2009.

Did you read what I had to say from this time last year when the Wilson Ice shelf was breaking up?

Reread my post and read the link!

I'm not talking about long term climate change, I'm talking about annual climate change that is being 'spun' by those the GW crowd to imply something other than it is!
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Postby Penguin » Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:20 am

Ben D:
Would you care to explain why its been breaking up this year and the last one, if its getting colder there as you said? One would think the ice was getting thicker and stronger instead of breaking up (annually as you say) if it was getting colder there?
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Postby Ben D » Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:33 am

Penguin wrote:Ben D:
Would you care to explain why its been breaking up this year and the last one, if its getting colder there as you said? One would think the ice was getting thicker and stronger instead of breaking up (annually as you say) if it was getting colder there?


\<]

Nevermind Penguin, there seem to be a lack of affinity of understanding here, and that also applies to wintler2. It appears that you both do not understand what is said to you, or worse, that you are purposely insincere and have no interest in engaging at a sharing level or developing a deeper understanding of nature.

Either way, thank you for your exchange and have faith that the answers to the questions that trouble you will ultimately come from within yourself, and not from me or any other an external source.
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Postby Penguin » Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:40 am

I thought that was a valid question...Maybe not..
In my experience, living close to the Arctic, ice tends to get thicker when weather is colder...
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Postby tazmic » Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:04 pm

Sounder wrote:
The ‘problem’ is that our current expressions of psyche equate ‘success’ with the ability to manipulate and control external objects. So even when things go out of control; a by product of misguided manipulations, we still answer with the same style of ‘solution’ that created the problem in the first place.


Not every What and When is simply a misguided manipulation. A manipulator could understand your point perfectly...

Whether it is money given to fraud driven banks, apartheid Israel, conformist science or new markets for Carbon trading, we have to ask, how does this happen? How and why rather than who what and when.


But it's the What and the When that let us ascertain the nature of the How and the Why. At least it's the clearest way to get a handle on that context
which enslaves, and to understand how it moves in the world.

Why don't you add the New Age to your list?

Sorry to seem flippant, because I love you folk and learn lots, but the who, what, and when that entertains many people is so much trivia compared to the potential in creating a new conscious model of reality that is able to integrate (more) sub and unconscious elements into our conscious understanding. We will not stop playing the fool until we get the guts to actively try to re-write our programming.

The who, what and when relate to external objects, and by dealing only with these things one is promoting the existing, control things for success, dualistic programming.


An analysis of the What and the When does not mean that 'only these things' are being considered. It's certainly the case in the News, where
questions and potential solutions never challenge that dominant framework, but I think a lot of people here are beyond that.

There is the danger that you are still constructing a dualistic system. Turning against 'the outside' as trivial compared to...let's say, the
transformative possibilities of the inside, is still setting up a goal within
the context of order, manipulate & control, just like religions always have.

Telling people they aren't free, that they are imperfect.

If people became free of the programming you oppose, then they would
only have left the What and the When to oppose, and they would see
it very clearly for what it is.
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Postby Sounder » Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:21 pm

Tazmic, thanks for getting to some substance.

Not every What and When is simply a misguided manipulation.


Certainly not, but people are still being played by allowing the what and when to be filtered through one ‘belief’ system or another. Observation shows that most people use their intellect to fit the facts into their belief system. That’s poor usage of the intellects potential. We could use the intellect to refine our beliefs but there is that little issue of ego. It is insecure so it tries to ‘fix’ the category, as in make hard, so then the personality becomes defined by reactivity instead of being a creative expression of essential self.

A manipulator could understand your point perfectly...


Manipulators are unconsciously validated every time a fact is butchered to make it conform to some belief. A certain class of manipulators do understand this quite well (see my sig line), but another class is simply unconsciouslly repulsed from considering the point.

This was picked out as I reviewed other tazmic posts. (I have not been around much, so it was good to review.) Sorry, i did not note the author or thread.

In the 1970s, "a major cooling of the planet" was "widely considered inevitable" because it was "well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950" (New York Times, May 21, 1975). Although some disputed that the "cooling trend" could result in "a return to another ice age" (the Times, Sept. 14, 1975), others anticipated "a full-blown 10,000-year ice age" involving "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation" (Science News, March 1, 1975, and Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976, respectively). The "continued rapid cooling of the Earth" (Global Ecology, 1971) meant that "a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery" (International Wildlife, July 1975). "The world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age" (Science Digest, February 1973). Because of "ominous signs" that "the Earth's climate seems to be cooling down," meteorologists were "almost unanimous" that "the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century," perhaps triggering catastrophic famines (Newsweek cover story, "The Cooling World," April 28, 1975). Armadillos were fleeing south from Nebraska, heat-seeking snails were retreating from Central European forests, the North Atlantic was "cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool," glaciers had "begun to advance" and "growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter" (Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 27, 1974).

Speaking of experts, in 1980 Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford scientist and environmental Cassandra who predicted calamitous food shortages by 1990, accepted a bet with economist Julian Simon. When Ehrlich predicted the imminent exhaustion of many nonrenewable natural resources, Simon challenged him: Pick a "basket" of any five such commodities, and I will wager that in a decade the price of the basket will decline, indicating decreased scarcity. Ehrlich picked five metals -- chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten -- that he predicted would become more expensive. Not only did the price of the basket decline, the price of all five declined.

An expert Ehrlich consulted in picking the five was John Holdren, who today is President Obama's science adviser. Credentialed intellectuals, too -- actually, especially -- illustrate Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."


How does memory of events and experience get swamped out by dogmas and communal truths so easily?

But it's the What and the When that let us ascertain the nature of the How and the Why.


I agree and we cannot get around this. But we can use facts to undermine our beliefs as well as to reinforce them. But cultural habituation says we use facts in the second manner. We gain stature, in whatever sub-community we happen to belong to, by controlling the categories better than the average person. Then we use the internally consistent reasoning of that community to create righteous wars so as to impose this better way on another community.

At least it's the clearest way to get a handle on that context
which enslaves, and to understand how it moves in the world.


The what, when and who qualifies one to play well on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’, but if one asks why, there is better chance to be touched by Divine Consciousness.

Then,--- We have a chance to adopt a new style of expression for our individual and collective psyches.

Why don't you add the New Age to your list?


By all means. These folk seem to often display a stunning lack of understanding for the distinction between thoughts and intention.

An analysis of the What and the When does not mean that 'only these things' are being considered. It's certainly the case in the News, where
questions and potential solutions never challenge that dominant framework, but I think a lot of people here are beyond that.


I have posted on RI for over two years. I will grant that my writing may seem obscure but I took Blake’s advice seriously, long before marmot used the quote for his sig line. The trouble is tazmic, because my basic theme is that there is a virus within intellect, the degree that the reader is offended is closely related to how ‘smart’ that person is.

There is the danger that you are still constructing a dualistic system.


It seems to be in the nature of appearances, for dualism to stay close at hand.

Turning against 'the outside' as trivial compared to...let's say, the
transformative possibilities of the inside, is still setting up a goal within
the context of order, manipulate & control, just like religions always have.


So here is the funny thing about that. I post some stuff on Stormy Weather. You may consider it to be oriented too far towards ‘transformative possibilities of the inside’.
At any rate, one comment made, was that I considered myself to be; ‘a waterboy carrying buckets between the gasmasters and the fixed formers’. Said in reference to a consciousness as water allegory where GC is melting the ice created by our static relation between psyche and reality. I was pushing the idea that we might enjoy, oh, at least a millennium or so of consciousness flowing like water before so much heat is applied that the water is turned into gas. No response, huh, funny that, I’m the Rodney Dangerfield of bloggers. (There is a reason his name is DANGERFIELD)

Telling people they aren't free, that they are imperfect.


Tell me more.

If people became free of the programming you oppose, then they would
only have left the What and the When to oppose, and they would see
it very clearly for what it is.


I do not ‘oppose’ the programming; I merely maintain that the better we recognize the nature of the programming, the more we will be able to change or influence that programming.

Thanks again tazmic
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
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Postby Penguin » Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:44 pm

Ben D:
"The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has been at the forefront of predicting doom in the arctic as ice melts due to global warming. In May, 2008 they went so far as to predict that the North Pole would be ice-free during the 2008 'melt season,' leading to a lively Slashdot discussion. Today, however, they say that they have been the victims of 'sensor drift' that led to an underestimation of Arctic ice extent by as much as 500,000 square kilometers. The problem was discovered after they received emails from puzzled readers, asking why obviously sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as ice free open ocean. It turns out that the NSIDC relys on an older, less-reliable method of tracking sea ice extent called SSM/I that does not agree with a newer method called AMSR-E. So why doesn't NSIDC use the newer AMSR-E data? 'We do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data.' Turns out that the AMSR-E data only goes back to 2002, which is probably not long enough for the NSIDC to make sweeping conclusions about melting. The AMSR-E data is updated daily and is available to the public. Thus far, sea ice extent in 2009 is tracking ahead of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, so the predictions of an ice-free north pole might be premature."

http://nsidc.org/index.html
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2008/050508.html
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid ... 07&tid=271
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ (sensor drift)
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm (2009 ice area)

I dont want to believe :)
Sounder, good stuff...

Certainly not, but people are still being played by allowing the what and when to be filtered through one ‘belief’ system or another. Observation shows that most people use their intellect to fit the facts into their belief system. That’s poor usage of the intellects potential. We could use the intellect to refine our beliefs but there is that little issue of ego. It is insecure so it tries to ‘fix’ the category, as in make hard, so then the personality becomes defined by reactivity instead of being a creative expression of essential self.


Ben D:
Let me say again, even if I disagree, you should know that I dont support the proposed solutions to the real or unreal warming. Power plays, politics, tax schemes, green "eco" fascism..

I see the problems elsewhere - simply because I would want to live, and let other beings live too. One day the worms will eat me, and Ill promise to come to haunt people forever if they go and cremate me, in a last act of giving the middle finger to nature and its cycles.

Currently thats not happening - we live like vampires.
Kick me some more.
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Postby wintler2 » Thu Feb 19, 2009 5:40 pm

Penguin wrote:I thought that was a valid question...Maybe not..
In my experience, living close to the Arctic, ice tends to get thicker when weather is colder...

Up is still up Penguin, Ben D is just incapable normal Q&A exchanges, as that would force him into admitting his errors. Ben D does claim upthread that the Wilkins ice shelf melts and reforms each year, a fantasy contradicted by the ref i provided. But Ben D doesn't do references, or links, or facts, and so plows on regardless. Don't let the turkeys confuse you. Wikipedia provides a nice history ..
On March 25, 2008 a 405 km² (160 sq mi) chunk of the Wilkins ice shelf disintegrated, putting an even larger portion of the glacial ice shelf at risk.[3][4] While temperature almost certainly played a part in this disintegration, several recent earthquakes magnitude 5.0 and greater along the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge may also have contributed.[5][6][7] Scientists were surprised when they discovered the rest of the 14,000 km² (5,400 sq mi)[8] ice shelf is beginning to break away from the continent. What is left of the Wilkins ice shelf is now connected by only a narrow beam of ice.[9] At the end of May, another break-off further reduced the width of the connecting ice strip from 6–2.7 km (3.7–1.7 mi).[10] This second smaller event, with about 160 km2 (62 sq mi) of ice separating, was the first documented break-up that occurred in winter.[10] The Wilkins Ice Shelf is not connected to inland glaciers in the same way as the Larsen B Ice Shelf was and will therefore have a negligible effect on sea level rise.[9]

On November 29, 2008 it was announced that The Wilkins Ice Shelf has lost around 2,000 square kilometers (about 772 square miles) so far this year, the ESA said. A satellite image captured November 26 shows new rifts on the ice shelf that make it dangerously close to breaking away from the strip of ice -- and the islands to which it's connected, the ESA said.[11]

On January 20, 2009, it was reported by Reuters that the ice shelf could collapse into the ocean within "weeks or months". The shelf is now only held up by a very thin strip of ice (varying from 2 km to 500 meters at the narrowest), which makes it very vulnerable to cracks and fissures. If the strip were to break, it would release the ice shelf, which now has the area of the state of Connecticut (About 14,000 km²). [12]

Due to the ice shelf imminent risk of collapse ESA’s Envisat satellite is observing the area on a daily basis. The satellite acquisitions are updated automatically to monitor the developments immediately as they occur.[13] Additionally NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites overfly the area several times a day and some of the images acquired are also available.[14]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkins_Sound


If Ben D wishes to continue pretending that the same areas of ice refreeze every winter, he might like to join the reality based community and provide some evidence.
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Postby Penguin » Thu Feb 19, 2009 5:44 pm

Salmon is a fish, I know. Im not Konfucius either :) Dont worry, friend.
I have noticed his reticence to admit his own errors, even when factual and clear. I just wanted to say that it is not necessary to believe one way or another, to take action to make a difference, irregardless of politics or public opinion. Warming or not, beings are vanishing off the planet, due to our actions during the last 8000 years.
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Postby TVC15 » Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:08 pm

This thread is just full of unintentional humor!

Cosmic Cowbell , for example says loftily of those whom he disagrees with:

On the other hand are those who seem to dismiss the evidence for Mans fingerprint on the global warming issue. They tend to offer articles that use questionable research



He then turns around and posts the Steig study, which courtesy of the bogus station "Harry" data it uses, is guilty of using questionable research!

Funny!


Then there is Penguin.

Penguin does not seem to care for Ben D too awfully much, and busts out the "who is search" to show that his info is crap that comes from false front sites that are really secretly run by Big Somebody with an agenda.

But don't worry Ben D, says Penguin, I'm cool 'cause I don't buy any of that stupid shit like green "eco" fascism, and all the while Penguin is linking to and quoting from a site (rewilding.org) that is run by people with a history of eco terrorism, racism, and pro-eugenics philosophy!

Heh heh.


By the way, still waiting for updates on that massive Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse.

I would have thought such a huge event would be all over the news by now.

Great stuff.
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Postby wintler2 » Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:36 pm

TVC15 wrote:..By the way, still waiting for updates on that massive Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse.

I would have thought such a huge event would be all over the news by now.

Great stuff.


Numerous links have been provided, what is your problem? Do you, like Ben D, claim that the 2000sq km lost in 08 refroze in 09, despite the overwhelming evidence otherwise? :x
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Postby Penguin » Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:57 pm

TVC15 wrote:This thread is just full of unintentional humor!
Then there is Penguin.

Penguin does not seem to care for Ben D too awfully much, and busts out the "who is search" to show that his info is crap that comes from false front sites that are really secretly run by Big Somebody with an agenda.

But don't worry Ben D, says Penguin, I'm cool 'cause I don't buy any of that stupid shit like green "eco" fascism, and all the while Penguin is linking to and quoting from a site (rewilding.org) that is run by people with a history of eco terrorism, racism, and pro-eugenics philosophy!

Heh heh.


That rewilding site was the only english translation I found, I have never before visited that site, I did not check its background, I only posted the link since that was the only place that had english version of the news story. Thats why I also posted the original spanish one - it was a spanish research vessel, after all.

So yes, unintended humor.

Ok, now there is another english source, its independent story of the same thing:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbe ... y_a_2.html

Wilkins ice sheet hanging by an icy thread - January 20, 2009

wilkins_ice_shelf_from_bas_twin_otter_2.jpg
A couple of Reuters journalists are down in the Antarctic taking a snoop around at the moment. (British Antarctic Survey release)

One of their stories tracks the demise of the Wilkins Ice Shelf. “We've come to the Wilkins Ice Shelf to see its final death throes," David Vaughan, a glaciologist with BAS told Reuters.

The ice sheet holding the shelf in place is now, at its thinnest point, 500 metres wide. This could snap off at any moment, says Vaughan. It’s the tenth such shelf to fall to the mercy of the ocean thanks to climate change.

That the shelf is there at all could be a surprise to some – it was on the brink of collapse last March as well, which as we said at the time, was a story first emerging the summer before that.

In a way, it would be nice to be writing this story again next year, just because the ice shelf would have survived. But that seems unlikely.

Photo: Wilkins Ice Shelf from BAS Twin Otter / BAS


And Ill be removing that unsavoury source then....Now its replaced with the spanish Yahoo news story, I hope you know spanish as well as I do. And if not, above is the Nature blog story about same.
Yeah, I should always check the sources...But when youre replying to 20 threads simultaneously (yeah I have 20 tabs open), one can be too quick...

You dont seem to like me much either :) Anything else thats on your heart?
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