Posted on 08/10/2010 3:06:02 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
STOCKHOLM – An island of ice more than four times the size of Manhattan is drifting across the Arctic Ocean after breaking off from a glacier in Greenland.
Potentially in the path of this unstoppable giant are oil platforms and shipping lanes — and any collision could do untold damage. In a worst case scenario, large chunks could reach the heavily trafficked waters where another Greenland iceberg sank the Titanic in 1912.
It's been a summer of near biblical climatic havoc across the planet, with wildfires, heat and smog in Russia and killer floods in Asia. But the moment the Petermann glacier cracked last week — creating the biggest Arctic ice island in half a century — may symbolize a warming world like no other.
"It's so big that you can't prevent it from drifting. You can't stop it," said Jon-Ove Methlie Hagen, a glaciologist at the University of Oslo.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
When I read about penguins freezing to death, I knew there was some SERIOUS cold involved.
Or reduce it to several million ice cube sized pieces of ice.
Radioactive ice cubes, the best kinsd to use at such things a s the democrat convention, white house socials and of course nancy pelosis water glass.
Don’t forget the Pecan wood for the grillin’.
I might just join you.
Tow it to Louisiana, this time of year the drive thru daquiri huts start running out of ice.
The latest we are all gonna die story from the LSM
Bullsh*t. Arctic winter will stop it dead in its tracks till Spring, and maybe then some depending.
oh wait, that was from a movie wasn't it? :-)
Er, uhm, how can I say this ..... NO!!!!
Pure, BS from everyone quoted in this hysterical piece of cr&p.
The “ice island” is INSIDE a narrow, twisting fjord, now about 1-1/2 miles from even the OPENING of the fjord in Greenland. (See satellite photos, www.wattasupwiththat.com )
The “island” is no larger than Manhattan - which will permit it to BECOME a large iceberg - WHEN it gets out of the fjord - IF it can! - and WHEN it starts melting as it goes south (many hundreds of miles) towards the shipping lanes.
But right now? It’s trapped and can do nothing but melt. Or re-freeze into the tip of the glacier since the Arctic temperatures at 80 degrees north latitude (which cuts across north Greenland) are trending back towards 0.0 Celcius, and will go below freezing in about two more weeks.
Wasn’t there a novel. or maybe a news article about towing ice bergs to Saudi?
barbra ann
I wouldn’t be surprised if some enterprizeing person
moved a hundred Katrina housing units on to the flow
and rented them out as summer homes
“close to the coast”.
All the fresh water and ice you need.
I think they should build an ice palace with a landing strip. Turn it into the ultimate exclusive club.
Thanks for the laugh! Had not seen that one!
Anyone who can't resist hyperbole and make an asinine statement like that, is simply an ignoramus who hasn't enough brain cells to grasp that this has been going on every few years as long as humans have had the ability to track large icebergs from space.
Dang, it is just a big chunk of ice that is stuck up in there
amongst a whole bunch of other chunks of ice.
How’s a feller gonna make a claim on that and live on it?
I thought it was all out there in the ocean
and some kind of big hazard to ships and navigation and ery’thin.
I am so disappointed.
The “birthing” process (or sometimes called “calving”, when a big glacier gives “birth” to a little one, at “oceans waters edge”) of glaciers has two components.
The inland buildup of the snow/ice pack creates pressures, both downward and horizontally, which leads to the bottom-most layer of the glacier obtaining a “frozen” state that is more like water, and with the pressure from all the weight from above, it begins to slide - and where does water slide to, it slides to any point that is lower and lower eventually reaches the sea.
The calving takes place by the assistance of the ocean and its temperature, which at any time is warmer than the glacier. “Warmer” (than ?average? sea temperatures do assist the “calving” process, but they don’t create it. The massive body of the glacier does that, no matter what the temperature of the ocean is at the edge of the glacier.
The way the LSM talks it does sound like its out there bobbing around in the North Atlantic bearing down on ships and oil platforms ready to do as much damage as possible.
Maybe the interviewer would have been happy if the blame had been assigned to the malevolent effects of the Zionist occupation of Palestine and the brutal Jewish oppression of the Palestinian women and children. Not as good as global warming, but it will do in a pinch. Oh, and it is all the fault of that Zionist son of a pig and a monkey George W. Bush!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.