Is this another canary, or just natural variability?

Question

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080325/sc_livescience/vastantarcticiceshelfonvergeofcollapse

Answer 1

The glaciologist's seem to be more concerned about rising sea-level than the climate modelers.  Maybe we should be paying more attention to their concerns.

Answer 2

Given this quote from your link, I'd say it's natural variability:

"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 it to break up," Scambos said.

...and BEFORE that, what was it?

I find it amusing people get paid to watch ice melt.  If I can create a reason for everyone to be afraid of grass growing, will I get paid to sit on my front porch and watch that, too?

Answer 3

It's unprecedented in human times.  There have always been icebergs breaking off the ice shelves of Antarctica.  What has been different the past few years is the size of the bergs, big as whole states.  It's hard to know what has happened in the more distant past.  They are scrambling to see what they can find to indicate the boundaries of any previous meltings, since it's looking like it's all going to melt.  At first they thought these caps simply hadn't melted, ever, and had remained untouched by the cycle of ice ages and melts.  Now there is some evidence that if you go back far enough (millions of years) it may have all melted except a few spots, or maybe even entirely, well prior to the advent of mammals.

"...the latest sign of global warming's impact on Earth's southernmost continent...Scientists are shocked by the rapid change of events." (they) "had predicted in 1993 that the northern part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf was likely to be lost within 30 years if warming on the Peninsula continued at the same rate...we'll know in the next few days and weeks what its fate will be."

Answer 4

Whatever it means, it doesn't go along with the skeptical refrain that we are in a cooling trend.

Susan: And I don't understand how skeptics can think that a brief plateau indicates an abrupt end to a long term warming trend. You help make my point with your analogy.

Answer 5

Well, it's certainly not a canary, canaries are not made of ice.

Answer 6

Considering that we have had a drop in temperatures this year, how can that be a result of global warming?   The ice has broken off despite the  drop in temperatures not rise.

Answer 7

Chunks of ice have broken off of Antarctica every summer for eons.  Of course, we are causing it this time.

"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 it to break up,"

So this formation wasn't here before that?  Does that mean it broke off during the last warming period?  How did the penquins survive that, or are they a recent development too?

Answer 8

It's not natural on the scale of the past few thousand years, as evidence from these Antarctic glaciers shows:

New Research Confirms Antarctic Thaw Fears - Spiegel Online

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk...

"The paper also states that the thickness of the Pine Island Glacier has shrunk by an average of 3.8 centimeters annually over the past 4,700 years. But the Smith and Pope glaciers have only lost 2.3 centimeters of their thickness annually during the past 14,500 years. Satellite measurements taken between 1992 and 1996, though, show a loss of 1.6 meters in thickness per year on the Pine Island Glacier -- a figure that represents 42 times the average melt of the past 4,700 years."

Answer 9

OMG! This must be the proof that global warming is man made.  The canary is dead, we've hit the tipping point, we're now in positive feedback, the ice is releasing tons of methane.  Maybe now winter will end.

Never before in the history of Earth has an iceberg broken off of Antarctica.  Never.  The only reason it's happening now is because of man!..

The only way to fix this ice shelf is to raise taxes and shut off our lights for an hour on the 29th of March!

Answer 10

I'm worried that someone/something has eaten the canary. You don't have to sweat it until it reaches another 600ppm. Then take an aspirin with your mint julep. That's still below degradation standards of 5000ppm over eight hours. On your big ice cubes just use them in your drink. As to date, no one knows the complete carbon cycle, so if you have the complete schematics to existences please let the world know. Then we all can have a big parade in your honor.

Answer 11

its a myth globle warming

Answer 12

c**p, that's not good.

"David Vaughan of the BAS had predicted in 1993 that the northern part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf was likely to be lost within 30 years if warming on the Peninsula continued at the same rate."

Another example of an "alarmist" prediction being too conservative.