
5800sq km iceberg breaks off Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf - okket
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/giant-antarctic-iceberg-breaks-free-of-larsen-c-ice-shelf
======
mino
Good images from ESA's Sentinel-1 and CryoSat here:
[https://phys.org/news/2017-07-sentinel-satellite-captures-
bi...](https://phys.org/news/2017-07-sentinel-satellite-captures-birth-
behemoth.html)

------
TaylorAlexander
I recently watched a Carl Sagan keynote from 1990 on climate change. You can
skip the old guy introducing him, but I found Carl's parables and discussion
of the options interesting given how little we ended up doing.

[https://youtu.be/9Xz3ZjOSMRU](https://youtu.be/9Xz3ZjOSMRU)

The scientific community was so wrong. Begging the government to solve it
wasn't going to happen.

I'm still at a loss for what to do.

~~~
harshreality
> The scientific community was so wrong. Begging the government to solve it
> wasn't going to happen.

Which government?

Rewind to 1990. Suppose the U.S. government takes the hard-line position that
climate change risks being a civilization-ending nightmare and has to be
stopped ASAP. Other countries are going to know that going into negotiations.
What exactly is the proposition to other countries to get them to dramatically
decrease emissions? If we even got them to agree to it, they'd stripmine the
U.S. economy in return, and wouldn't even leave us with our shirts. That's on
top of the severe short-term self-imposed economic hardship of cutting
hydrocarbon usage.

Granted, I don't believe for a moment that most conservative politicians have
the appropriate level of concern for global warming, or the broader
environment, or the wide variety of failure modes of capitalism in the realms
of non-excludable and "club" (excludable but non-rival) goods in general. But
assume for the sake of argument that they did have sufficient concern, or
better yet, let's say the Green Party controls the House, Senate, and
Executive. I don't understand what strategy the environmental left would have
the U.S. use in international relations 10, 20, 30 years ago to try to
mitigate environmental damage.

~~~
nthcolumn
The US government obviously. I suppose as the biggest polluter by far you are
bound to lose out most but how is that everyone else's problem? And what an
argument - 'oh yeah I would have but I knew nobody else would so I just did
even worse'. Plenty of other governments signed up for Kyoto in 1990 and
pushed for higher levels. Anyways, what sort of economy were you planning to
have without a habitable planet? The strategy, and potentially a highly
lucrative one given US lead in required green tech, would have been less
denying the uncomfortable truth, less pandering to big oil lobby and more
educating the willfully ignorant and more investment in renewables and a bit
of using your market influence to push the agenda. Hardly ever going to be
likely though with GWB et al in charge although he did correctly say that
there needed to be a technological solution. Trump omgwtf - they should call
that thing the Bigly Berg in his dishonour.

I have 100ha trees btw. Used to be veggie but as that means GM and worse soya
i.e. bad and very, very bad, eat and fly fewer miles now.

~~~
harshreality
I'm not sure if these are the best data to use but can we go with this?

1990:
[http://cait2.wri.org/historical/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?in...](http://cait2.wri.org/historical/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?indicator\[\]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Excluding%20Land-
Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&indicator\[\]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Including%20Land-
Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&year\[\]=2015&sortIdx=NaN&chartType=geo)

    
    
        (Mt CO2 emissions  direct / with land-use)
        U.S.: 5,866 / 5,550
        China: 3,154 / 2,833
        India: 1,188 / 1,142
        Brazil: 556 / 1,447
        World: 23,541 / 33,823
    

2013:
[http://cait2.wri.org/historical/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?in...](http://cait2.wri.org/historical/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?indicator\[\]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Excluding%20Land-
Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&indicator\[\]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Including%20Land-
Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&year\[\]=2013&sortIdx=NaN&chartType=geo)

    
    
        U.S.: 6,279 / 6,213 
        China: 11,735 / 11,422
        India: 2,909 / 3,031
        Brazil: 1,017 / 1,317
        World: 48,257 / 46,445
    

Of course the U.S. is worst per capita, both then and now, but the U.S. could
have cut emissions to zero in 1990 and CO2 emissions would be higher now than
they were then.

How could a 1990s U.S. put substantially more pressure on other countries to
curb hydrocarbon use when their economies were (and many still are)
"developing"?

~~~
TaylorAlexander
If the US cut emissions by investing in new technology that technology would
be available to purchase to everyone in the world.

------
ianaphysicist
A bit larger than the US state of Delaware.

(5800 sq km is 2239 sq mi. The land area of Delaware is 1949 sq mi per
Wikipedia)

~~~
coolspot
But how big it is in football fields?

~~~
pc86
About a million.

    
    
                1 sq mi     =      2,787,400 sq ft
            2,239 sq mi     = 62,419,737,600 sq ft
                1 fb field  =         57,600 sq ft
        1,083,676 fb fields = 62,419,737,600 sq ft

------
wklauss
What will be the most likely scenario now? will we see this piece drift away
and melt? stay relatively close to the current area? and if it will start
drifting, how far can it go with such an impressive amount of ice?

~~~
mino
On wiki there's this good illustration of what happened over time to iceberg
B-15, which calved in 2002 and it is the largest recorded iceberg:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_B-15#/media/File:B15a_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_B-15#/media/File:B15a_a4.jpg)

~~~
wl
Non-media-viewer link:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:B15a_a4.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:B15a_a4.jpg)

------
Mankhool
[https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2017/jul/10...](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-
responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change)

------
ndh2
> _There is enough ice in Antarctica that if it all melted, or even just
> flowed into the ocean, sea levels [would] rise by 60 metres_

Is this true? Wikipedia says "About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that
averages 1.9 km in thickness". But is all of that above sea level?

~~~
rukittenme
Above sea level is poor phrasing. The ice is land based which is what's
important. Sea ice doesn't increase sea levels.

I wouldn't worry about Antarctica melting. It's ice is growing at the moment.

~~~
Oletros
This year, sea ice extension in the Antarctica has reached a low record >
[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/sea-ice-extent-
sin...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/sea-ice-extent-sinks-to-
record-lows-at-both-poles/)

------
spodek
> And while climate change is accepted to have played a role in the wholesale
> disintegration of the Larsen A and Larsen B ice shelves, Luckman emphasised
> that there is no evidence that the calving of the giant iceberg is linked to
> such processes.

> Twila Moon, a glacier expert at the US National Ice and Snow Data Center
> agrees but, she said, climate change could have made the situation more
> likely.

And yet will a single person who reads about yet more evidence that humans are
contributing to global warming change his or her behavior significantly to
reduce his or her contribution?

Will you, reading these words, actually do something you wouldn't have as a
result of learning about this?

Most people will blame someone else, maybe the president or the system, or say
solar power is growing or population growth isn't as fast as it used to be or
ask what difference does my contribution make...

and then go back to what they would have done otherwise, without meaningful
change.

Which is how we got here.

~~~
Ixiaus
I'm someone who did a few things after reading a research paper attempting to
quantify the detrimental effects of climate change.

I no longer own a car, I bike everywhere.

I work remote 100%.

I do not eat beef if I can help it anymore.

I use the train for long distance personal travel. I still fly when it is for
my company, though.

I take transit when biking would be too slow.

I signed up for my city's green energy program. I pay more to receive 30% of
my energy use from wind farms.

I cancelled Amazon Prime.

I buy items locally as much as possible.

I avoid online shopping if possible.

All of my food comes from local, small producers.

Cutting consumption behavior down has, unsurprisingly, saved me a lot of money
and these behaviors are reducing the amount of carbon I emit.

~~~
jerry40
This explains late summer in european part of Russia this year. Another couple
of persons like you will freeze us to death. Can you at least ride a bike more
frequently? :)

~~~
nthcolumn
Apparently bikes are really bad for the environment being slow, low occupancy
road vehicles? I think if are taking upon yourself to advise people you should
advocate greener forms of transport such as existing public transit links,
walking.

~~~
wbl
A bike consumes much less pavement space then a car, increasing corridor
capacity.

~~~
nthcolumn
No it is the same. They cannot occupy the same space unless there are
dedicated lanes. I guess even then it is single occupancy. A bicycle is a
single space same as a car with only a driver. I wish I had the link now,
sorry.

~~~
wbl
You don't have the link because it is wrong. More bicycles can pass a given
plane in a certain width than cars can over a length of time. As for dedicated
lanes we hand over lanes to parking.

------
nonbel
I see this thread is already filling with people who just know better than the
experts that this event was some ominous sign of climate change. That is
something totally made up by the media and internet:

>“Although this is a natural event, and we’re not aware of any link to human-
induced climate change, this puts the ice shelf in a very vulnerable position.
This is the furthest back that the ice front has been in recorded history.
We’re going to be watching very carefully for signs that the rest of the shelf
is becoming unstable.”
[http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/calving/](http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/calving/)

~~~
liberte82
Scientists will ALWAYS say this about single events. It's impossible to tie a
single event to a long term process like climate change. Although I'm not
surprised to see this kind of defense from the party that brought a snowball
into Congress as proof that climate change isn't occurring.

~~~
nonbel
This seems to be a talking point that people are mindlessly repeating that is
wrong in multiple ways. I won't bother with all, but here is the _exact same
person_ making a link to a single event regarding the _exact same ice shelf_ :

>"And while climate change is accepted to have played a role in the wholesale
disintegration of the Larsen A and Larsen B ice shelves, Luckman emphasised
that there is no evidence that the calving of the giant iceberg is linked to
such processes." [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/giant-
antarcti...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/giant-antarctic-
iceberg-breaks-free-of-larsen-c-ice-shelf)

This story is somewhat interesting on its own, but it is clear the media and
ignorant people on the internet have blown it up into fake news.

~~~
Oletros
The whole disintegration of Larsen A and B are not a single event like the
calving of an iceberg

~~~
nonbel
The calving of the iceberg was not a single event either. First the rift
formed, then it started branching, etc.

Anyway, this event is bringing out the worst arguments I have ever seen.

