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Antarctic Ice Discussion


pottyprof

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

When looking at 'collapse' surely you're better suited with a demolition expert?

The 'mechanic's of a 'mechanical collapse' do not seem to be a Forte ' of the climate scientists (which is why they appear 'behind the game' on catastrophic collapses of things.....like ice shelf's, Ice 'sheets', glacier snouts, glacial dams, etc,etc,).

There are sections of the WAIS and EAIS that should be bourne in mind here, you loose the 'supporting front' and glaciers, up to 3/4 of a mile high, and you' got 'issues' with structural integrity for a few miles back (if my 'geology of 'collapse' is still 'current'?) from the 'ice front'.

Anyhoo's ,we're getting towards the 'collapse' time of Antarctic year (Feb?) so we'll see if owt' 'fails' this year?

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

As has been mentioned before In October 2009, a series of flights over Antarctica led to the discovery of a hidden feature beneath a floating ice shelf. Scientists participating in NASA’s Operation IceBridge mapped the water depth and seafloor topography beneath Pine Island Glacier and found a deepwater channel—a likely pathway for warm water to reach the glacier’s underbelly and melt it from below.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=48637

NASA Earth Observatory images created by Jesse Allen, based on a model by Michael Studinger of NASA IceBridge and gravity data from Columbia University.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

Hotter summers may not be as catastrophic for the Greenland ice sheet as previously feared and may actually slow down the flow of glaciers, according to new research.

A letter published in Nature on 27 January explains how increased melting in warmer years causes the internal drainage system of the ice sheet to 'adapt' and accommodate more melt-water, without speeding up the flow of ice toward the oceans. The findings have important implications for future assessments of global sea level rise.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/uol-ph012411.php

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

post-2752-0-81805500-1296996413_thumb.jp

A nice update of the Crevasse on Ross Embayment (1st Feb)

The 250m image has the fissure at 1.75km wide with nearly 20miles between it and the Ross Sea (I didn't do the length but that has to be in the hundreds of miles!)

With the warmer waters working their way from Pine Island how long will it be before the base of Ross is attacked and 'floated' putting immense strains on the ice above?

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Orleton, 6 miles south of Ludlow
  • Location: Orleton, 6 miles south of Ludlow

Looks like we are about where we should be for the time of year.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png

Any update on the crevasse at Ross Embayment G-W?

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I think this is now my 5th year of 'keeping an eye on it' and ,apart from looking to be becoming wider, not a lot happens!!! The 'remnant of the last large calve (further towards the centre of the embayment) has a nice little 'inlet' eating away at the crevasse the rest 'sheared off' from.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Zurich Switzerland
  • Location: Zurich Switzerland

My link

well this throws a spanner in the works for traditional thinking... we learn all the time.. i wonder if this is the same for Greenland glaciers in which case extra meltwater at the bottom of the glaciers could add quite a bit of extra ice...

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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary

My link

well this throws a spanner in the works for traditional thinking... we learn all the time.. i wonder if this is the same for Greenland glaciers in which case extra meltwater at the bottom of the glaciers could add quite a bit of extra ice...

Fascinating alright. During the week I was at a talk about ice sheet dynamics and Antarctica in the Plieocene, comparing to nowadays. Then, sea levels were up to 25m higher, temps about 3C warmer and CO2 levels roughly the same as today.

That study adds a little weight to the idea that if we do see a change in the ice sheet, it's going to be quite sudden and possibly catastrophic.

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well this throws a spanner in the works for traditional thinking... we learn all the time.. i wonder if this is the same for Greenland glaciers in which case extra meltwater at the bottom of the glaciers could add quite a bit of extra ice...

Eh, meltwater can't add ice, by definition, since it had to start as ice in order to count as meltwater!

What this newly-identified process does is to move ice from one region to another - and, unusually, uphill. Meltwater collecting at the bottom of a valley gets squeezed uphill by the pressure of the overlying ice, and then refreezes as it gets into lower-pressure zones further uphill. You could see it as the ice/water analogue of cloud formation as wind currents are diverted upwards over mountain ranges.

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I tend to look at the sky in terms of flowing water too Songster!

It is interesting but kinda obvious? As someone trained in geology you need to have an understanding of plastic deformation in rocks at great depth/pressure so 'ice' would indeed act as reported. Lose some of the overburden (melt/thinning) and you lessen the pressure so lessen this type of ice accumulation. We then need to imagine how this is 'works' in a glacial sense as any past structures inside the ice are loss as it melts and re-crystallises. What then happens when it is moved as a solid and not 'plastic' or fluid? does it shatter or does it flow?

The base of the ice sheet is important in it's melt/decay as this is where the melt water goes and how , via collapse, we loose some of our structural integrity.

I think I need a think!

Edited by Gray-Wolf
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Posted
  • Location: Zurich Switzerland
  • Location: Zurich Switzerland

yep you got me.. that will teach me to scan read.. lol interesting though that such a large percentage of ice is built from the bottom up.. more so than from snow..

kind of obvious? maybe from a base extent.. shocks and gasps from scientists and professionals implies that maybe something was not obvious at all..

we continue to learn

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  • 1 month later...
Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Back in Jan some folk were holding up the Antarctic area anom as a balance for the N.H. ice losses. Today the anom down south is bigger than that oop North. Does this mean the north is now compensating for lost ice in Antarctica???

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Posted
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and heatwave
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft

http://arctic.atmos....edu/cryosphere/

Back in Jan some folk were holding up the Antarctic area anom as a balance for the N.H. ice losses. Today the anom down south is bigger than that oop North. Does this mean the north is now compensating for lost ice in Antarctica???

The global figures since 1979 support marked consistancy don't you think re the lack of anom from the mean ?

There is small drop last 6 months but lets see how the rest of 2011 pans out.

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Beat me to it!!!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110410181313.htm

Makes me wonder if this is the way we start to reduce ice levels across the continent with the peninsula melt leading to WAIS partial melt with feedbacks spilling over into E.A.I.S. freeing the channel between both islands?(as we saw from the research od 125k yrs ago??).

As long as we have an atmosphere trapping more heat then the Pacific will continue to warm and the process will continue until we have no ice along the coasts over summer allowing the higher temps to migrate inland (up to 1,500km...as we see in Greenland/Siberia/Alaska/Canada.

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  • 3 months later...
Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary

Antarctic sea ice area is back above average for the first time in around a month, albeit only just.

Posted Image

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I 'd guess that we've had a few fierce winter storms picking off the edges of the forming seasonal ice over the past 3 weeks? This is why it is good that the Arctic is nearly land locked?

Edited by Gray-Wolf
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  • 1 month later...
Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/fnl/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.gif

Any ideas what could be driving such high temps down there?

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Posted
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAn-QtBBlPY

An interesting piece found by Yamkin and was posted in the Japan earthquake and tsunami thread. It demonstrates how a tsunami can break off huge chunks of ice at the opposite side of the pacific to where the tsunami was triggered.

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Makes you wonder about the swells unleashed in the Arctic ocean and that 'halocline layer' it used to possess?

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Posted
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL

Makes you wonder about the swells unleashed in the Arctic ocean and that 'halocline layer' it used to possess?

Not particularly as that would be off topic. Makes you wonder about the swells around the Antarctic though.
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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Didn't we lose a portion of Larsen to swells that were generated in the Bering seas? I'm sure I read this way back when?

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  • 1 month later...
Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111013153957.htm

Just a 'heads up ' and a bump for the thread now Southern melt Season is upon us!

As ever I'll be watching my 'crack' (ooer missus!) on Ross and report on any changes there. with the warm waters , already attacking Pine island suite, moving in on Ross I'd expect to see 'change' there over the coming 10 years and if ,like some of the Major Greenland glaciers, we see the 'grounding line' of Ross pushed back we can expect it's loss ( the size of France remember? and taking the feed from the majority of the E.A.I.S. output).

We also need note the Ozone hole there and how it is doing. With warm air now aloft over Antarctica any let up in the Antarctic circumpolar winds ( and the ocean circulation it helps drive) will allow the global warming it keeps at bay to penetrate into the continent. If the loss of ozone (and temp at height) does influence this wind then the projected 'healing' of our damage there could lead to Antarctica playing 'catch up ' with the rest of the globe and we all know the problems in the Arctic!!!

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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Lower Brynamman, nr Ammanford, 160-170m a.s.l.
  • Location: Lower Brynamman, nr Ammanford, 160-170m a.s.l.

This from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15580679

Remarkably balanced reporting in that they mentioned both GW and the apparent natural 10-year cycle of berg formation in the area.

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Posted
  • Location: Weston-S-Mare North Somerset
  • Weather Preferences: Hot sunny , cold and snowy, thunderstorms
  • Location: Weston-S-Mare North Somerset

Good lord, BBC doing a balanced piesce of news on Climate change...

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