Why are images of ice breaking offf glaciers into the ocean always used as the main image of global warming?

Question

When it is a sure sign of a healthy glacier?

Answer 1

I have no idea.  It is as if natural warming can not cause glaciers to melt.

Answer 2

This isn't a scientific answer to your question but if you want to see a Hollywood style take on the issue watch the movie "The Day After Tomorrow".  It is just about that.  Of course it is sci-fi but interesting none the less.

Answer 3

Because there are plenty of ice bergs in the summer time.

People are scared of change.  They think the ice should always be there.  Thank god it's not, or NYC would still be under a mile thick sheet of ice.

Answer 4

I don't know that it is the "main image".  It's one of the most long standing predictions of the scientists, going back into the 1800's.  "Sure sign of a healthy glacier"?  Oh really?  You know there was a fellow named Ansel Adams who photographed most of the glaciers in North America back in the 1920's.  They were retreating at a rate of a few inches a year.  People have gone back recently to systematically rephotograph the same spots from the same locations.  The glaciers are now miles away, in some cases not even visible.  This could only be true if the rate of melting had increased substantially since Ansel's time.

Answer 5

Beats me. It’s been happening since long before the global warming scare, and long before CO2 reached present levels.

It is a dramatic image to try to prove their point though.

Answer 6

Because its the only way they can spread the fear of their false theory of global warming. Its never been proved and, there is big money in the so called "green" thinking

Answer 7

It's called 'Marketing'.

Answer 8

To scare people. Global Warming is based on fear and control, NOT science.

Answer 9

The same reason they show a piece of Antarctica the size of Rhode Island falling off. Because this isn't supposed to happen (according to established geological surveys and imaging). Global warming happens to be the best explanation for these events.

Answer 10

Good question and yet no one ever mentions the one that sunk the Titanic it had to have broken off from somewhere and the idea the ice chunks are new is crazy. Ice forms then gets so cold it breaks then new ice forms. Seems simple to me.

Answer 11

Glaciers that are receiving a lot of snowfall will typically have large amounts of ice dropping off into the ocean. It makes for an interesting and dramatic picture, but of itself does not imply that the glaciers are melting.

When glaciers are melting more than they are getting new snow, we see the glaciers retract from the point that they drop ice off into the ocean... they shrink leaving behind boulders that were carried by the moving ice.

We do see that shrinkage along Greenland and the peninsula in Antarctica, but most of Antarctica is still showing growth of glaciers, massive amounts of snow landing on those glaciers, so the glaciers move out and fall into the sea.

The snow fall itself is more indicative of global warming, because it does take a lot of energy to evaporate that much water to make that much snow. It takes a lot of snow to deliver that much heat to the air above Antarctica.

But how de we present that graphically?

Glaciers falling into the oceans implies snowfall which implies a lot of energy, but it is not yet melting the glaciers faster than the snow fall is building them. That will happen only when most of the precipitation falling on the shores of Antarctica is rain.

Answer 12

I think it's used as distraction. Notice there never is any news about glaciers that are expanding. only ones that are receding. Global Warming is all polotics.

Answer 13

Global Warming isn't about science and objectivity anymore. It has assumed the character of a religion and cannot be objectively discussed.

Answer 14

A healthy glacier is one that is retaining a constant ice mass (your assertion is too simplistic).  Calving (that's what you call the breaking off of chunks of ice into water) is one indication of ice mass loss.  The more calving, the more visual indication of loss.

Since we now know that Greenland, Antarctica, and glaciers all over the world (on average) are losing ice mass, that's a clear sign of warming.  And as land based ice falls into the sea, it will add to rising sea-levels.  Since 10's of millions of people live at elevations very close to sea-level, anything that raises the sea-level is a concern.

That's why the images are shown.

Antarctica lost more ice in last 10 years: study

http://www.reuters.com/article/environme...

Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Show Mass Loss in Antarctica

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...

Greenland Ice Mass Decline Graph

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/13984...

Changes in the Velocity Structure of the Greenland Ice Sheet

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...

Global Glacier Recession

http://nsidc.org/glims/glaciermelt/

World Glacier Monitoring Service

http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/mbb/mbb9/su...

Answer 15

they are used as the images becasue the glaciers are melting!  and thats a big deal!  some glaciers have been around forever and are now dissapering, and they are important because they feed lakes and rivers!  did you no the ganges river is drying up?  scary!  because the glacier that feeds it is melting and said to be gone by 2030!  a healthy glacier is one that isnt fastly melting!