Thread: Two huge icebergs let loose off Antarctica's coast

Two huge icebergs let loose off Antarctica's coast

Posted 5m ago
By Owen Pye, Associated Press

SYDNEY — An iceberg about the size of Luxembourg that struck a glacier off Antarctica and dislodged another massive block of ice could lower the levels of oxygen in the world's oceans, Australian and French scientists said Friday.

The two icebergs are now drifting together about 62 to 93 miles off Antarctica following the collision on Feb. 12 or 13, said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young.

"It gave it a pretty big nudge," Young said of the 60-mile long iceberg that collided with the giant floating Mertz Glacier and shaved off a new iceberg. "They are now floating right next to each other."

The new iceberg is 48 miles long and about 24 miles wide and holds roughly the equivalent of a fifth of the world's annual total water usage, Young told The Associated Press.

Experts are concerned about the effect of the massive displacement of ice on the ice-free water next to the glacier, which is important for ocean currents.

This area of water had been kept clear because of the glacier, said Steve Rintoul, a leading climate expert. With part of the glacier gone, the area could fill with sea ice, which would disrupt the ability for the dense and cold water to sink.

This sinking water is what spills into ocean basins and feeds the global ocean currents with oxygen, Rintoul explained.

As there are only a few areas in the world where this occurs, a slowing of the process would mean less oxygen supplied into the deep currents that feed the oceans.

"There may be regions of the world's oceans that lose oxygen, and then of course most of the life there will die," said Mario Hoppema, chemical oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany.

The icebergs, weighing 860 billion tons and 700 billion tons respectively, are located in water over the Antarctic Continental Shelf, Young said.

"We expect them to head west along the Antarctic coastline," he said.

Young said it was not likely they would reach as far north as Australia, and noted icebergs are very slow movers.

Oxygen levels being fed into the world's ocean currents are now changing "and the overturning circulation currents will respond to that change," Rintoul said. Observing what happens "will ... allow us to improve predictions of future climate change," he added.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/en ... tica_N.htm

massive block of ice could lower the levels of oxygen in the world's oceans, Australian and French scientists said Friday.

The new iceberg is 48 miles long and about 24 miles wide [/b]and holds roughly the equivalent of a fifth of the world's annual total water usage, Young told The Associated Press.

Experts are concerned about the effect of the massive displacement of ice on the ice-free water next to the glacier, which is important for ocean currents.

With part of the glacier gone, the area could fill with sea ice, which would disrupt the ability for the dense and cold water to sink.

I'd say this is all lies and "climate" propaganda.
Look at the scare tactics!
These fools actually THINK they are more powerful than nature? Or the weather? COME ON!

Even IF it was to happen , SO WHAT???
Wadda ya gonna do 'bout it?
Penilize the whole world for nothing but lies or at best speculation?

I'd rather deal with the consequenses than these bone-headed, power-mongering, FAKE , incompetent, Facist, so-called scientists!

Iceberg Threatens 'March Of Penguins' Colony

by Richard Harris
February 26, 2010

An enormous iceberg in Antarctica plowed into a peninsula made of ice and snapped it off, creating a second gigantic iceberg, and threatening the penguin colony made famous by the movie March of the Penguins.

The Mertz glacier in Antarctica has been gradually oozing out to sea, and for the past 70 years, it has been producing a giant tongue of ice.

French and Australian scientists have been watching that tongue because it looked like it would eventually crack off and become a giant iceberg. That's exactly what happened about a week ago, when a 60-mile-long iceberg rammed into it.

The two icebergs are now gradually heading counterclockwise around Antarctica, south of Australia. They're moving toward an area of open water that's the feeding grounds for the Emperor penguins who became international stars in the March of the Penguins documentary.

Biologists say this could make life even tougher for these amazingly hardy birds.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =124123118

So its gonna put a couple icecubes in the water for the penguins. When they group together after mating, the colonies suffer terrible extreme cold, so why worry? These bafoons act as though this never happenned before in the history of the earth.

I'ld like to see how well these quacks, I mean doctors would fare if they had to face something as extreme as these webfooted marine birds.

Vast iceberg may alter ocean currents

Luxembourg-sized chunk breaks off from Antarctica

msnbc.com news services
updated 5:24 a.m. PT, Fri., Feb. 26, 2010

SINGAPORE - An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has broken off from a glacier in Antarctica after being rammed by another giant iceberg, scientists said Friday, in an event that could affect ocean circulation patterns.

The 965-square-mile iceberg broke off earlier this month from the Mertz Glacier's 100-mile floating tongue of ice that sticks out into the Southern Ocean.

The collision has since halved the size of the tongue that drains ice from the vast East Antarctic ice sheet.

"The calving itself hasn't been directly linked to climate change, but it is related to the natural processes occurring on the ice sheet," said Rob Massom, a senior scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center in Hobart, Tasmania.


Both organizations, along with French scientists, have been studying existing giant cracks in the ice tongue and monitored the bumper-car-like collision by the second iceberg, B-9B. This 60-mile-long slab of ice is a remnant of an iceberg of more than 1,900 square miles that broke off, or calved, in 1987, making it one of the largest icebergs ever recorded in Antarctica.

The Mertz glacier iceberg is among the largest recorded for several years, at about two-thirds the size of Rhode Island.

In 2002, an iceberg about 120 miles long broke off from Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf. In 2007, an iceberg roughly the size of Singapore broke off from the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica.

'Pretty big nudge'
The two icebergs are now drifting together about 60 to 90 miles off Antarctica following the collision on Feb. 12 or Feb. 13, said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young.

"It gave it a pretty big nudge," Young said of the icebergs' collision. "They are now floating right next to each other."

Oceans act like a giant flywheel for the planet's climate by shifting heat around the globe via myriad currents above and below the surface.

Massom said the shearing off of the ice tongue and the presence of the Mertz and B-9B icebergs could affect global ocean circulation.

The area is an important zone for the creation of dense, salty water that is a key driver of major worldwide currents.

Experts said with part of the glacier gone, the area could fill with sea ice, which would disrupt the ability for the dense and cold water to sink. This sinking water is what spills into ocean basins and feeds the global ocean currents with oxygen.

Masson said: "Removal of this tongue of floating ice would reduce the size of that area of open water, which would slow down the rate of salinity input into the ocean and it could slow down this rate of Antarctic bottom water formation," he said.

As there are only a few areas in the world where this occurs, a slowing of the process would mean less oxygen supplied into the deep currents that feed the oceans.

"There may be regions of the world's oceans that lose oxygen, and then of course most of the life there will die," said Mario Hoppema, chemical oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35600197/ns ... vironment/

The new iceberg is 48 miles long and about 24 miles wide

That would be 1152 square miles. That's a big chunk of ice.

Updated February 27, 2010

Antarctica Spits Out Iceberg the Size of Small Country

NewsCore

An iceberg the size of Luxembourg split off from the Antarctic continent and could disrupt global ocean patterns and weather systems for decades, according to scientists cited in The Times of London on Saturday.


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An iceberg the size of Luxembourg split off from Antarctica and could disrupt global ocean patterns and weather systems for decades, according to scientists cited in The Times of London on Saturday.

The 985-square mile block of ice was knocked off the Mertz Glacier Tongue, a spit of floating ice protruding from eastern Antarctica, on Feb. 12 or 13.

It was dislodged by an older iceberg, known as B9B, which broke off in 1987.

[b]Although the impact was not expected to be felt for decades, the iceberg could block the production of cold, salty water, known as “bottom water,â€