'Monster' iceberg shedding hundreds of offshoots

[Nagishkaw 510]

SYDNEY (AFP) – An island-sized iceberg is breaking up as it drifts closer to Australia, producing hundreds of smaller slabs spread over a massive area of ocean, experts said Monday.

The 140-square-kilometre (54-square-mile) block of ice, known as B17B, was seen some 1,700 kilometres (1,054 miles) south-southwest of Australia's western coast on December 9, prompting a maritime alert for vessels in the area.

But as it has tracked further north and east the iceberg has shrunk to some 115 square kilometres -- still formidable at about twice the size of Manhattan.

"There are now many more smaller icebergs calving off B17B, measuring up to several kilometres in length, and spread over more than a thousand kilometres of ocean," said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young.

Young, who has tracked B17B using satellite images from NASA and the European Space Agency, said the iceberg was some 400 square kilometres in area and 40 metres high when it first broke off from Antarctica.

"If you didn't know about the early picture you would still say it's a monster," Young told AFP.

Young said he expected B17B to totally dissolve but was unable to predict when this would happen.

"Might be two weeks, might be several weeks. The key thing at the moment is it's getting thinner," he said.

"It's got its feet in what it thinks is warm water -- about six to eight degrees Celsius (45 F) -- we think that's freezing cold but for an iceberg that's quite warm.

"So it's thinning from the bottom and that's what's going to lead to it breaking up."

The iceberg, which calved from the eastern end of the Ross Ice Shelf nearly 10 years ago, is expected to continue tracking in a more easterly direction.

Australian authorities last week issued a shipping alert over the possible hazard from icebergs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091214/ts_af...tarcticaiceberg

[Niels Bohr 72]

Wow! When someone says Al-Gore is wrong, but, stuff like this says Al-Gore is right. Who is to blame for not warning people? There is no evil in conservation. People are looking for a reason for not changing. Al-Gore proposes serious changes to our environmental habits. I'm surprised at the rate of people hating Al-Gore, then, in effect they would not change their own environmental habits. Many people tell themselves everyday that global warming, environmental destruction are not real to appease their own self-conscious so they feel great everyday.

Little do people realize that there are more metals (alkaline, mercury, lithium, etc...) in their water supplies, nor do they know how much free radicals (molecules that has an uneven number of valence electrons) exists. Free radicals are carcinogenic as well as the metals. People in America takes things for granted because they don't see landfills being filled in their neighborhood. They just see the trash collector taking all the trash without questioning where it goes. Like as if it magically disappeared from the face of the earth. In other countries, you see trash everywhere. Why is America different? We managed trash better by organizing them onto unusable land.

Al-Gore may be hated by others. But, the undeniable truth cannot be avoided that our environment is changing.

[Peikko 1,575]

Landfill is an interesting question. The UK is one of the 'worst' European countries in that nearly 40% of trash is assigned to landfill where in continental Europe the average is a devastatingly small 5%. But hey, who cares? Trash isn't dangerous...

[HAL 9000 96]

the consolemaster wrote Al Gore with a hyphen.

Can we get any volunteers to monitor this monster of an iceberg for us with a play-by-play as it drifts closer to Oz?

I wonder how it could have broken off of Antarctica if global temperatures have been cooling.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Possibly the Ozone-layer when the cycle of large exposure kicks in since the Ozone is always fluctuating depending on the season. So, I would guess that a large sheet of ice somewhere came apart during the season when the Ozone hole is large.

Hmm...For the longest time I have hyphenated Al Gore. Don't know when it started.

the consolemaster wrote Al Gore with a hyphen.

Can we get any volunteers to monitor this monster of an iceberg for us with a play-by-play as it drifts closer to Oz?

I wonder how it could have broken off of Antarctica if global temperatures have been cooling.

Edited December 15, 2009 by Niels Bohr