Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 15^th, 2017 at 7:46pm:



Oh. Talking about temperatures being above average temperatures. Instead of absolute records.

IT'S HAPPENED

One of the biggest icebergs on record has broken away from Antarctica, scientists have said, creating an extra hazard for ships around the continent as it breaks up.

The 1-trillion-tonne iceberg, measuring 5,800 square kilometres, calved away from the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica sometime between July 10 and 12, scientists at the University of Swansea and the British Antarctic Survey said.

The iceberg has been close to breaking off for a few months. Throughout the Antarctic winter, scientists monitored the progress of the rift in the ice shelf using the European Space Agency satellites.

"The iceberg is one of the largest recorded and its future progress is difficult to predict," said Adrian Luckman, professor at Swansea University and lead investigator of Project MIDAS, which has been monitoring the ice shelf for years.

"It may remain in one piece but is more likely to break into fragments. Some of the ice may remain in the area for decades, while parts of the iceberg may drift north into warmer waters," he added.

The iceberg, which is likely to be named A68, was already floating before it broke away so there is no immediate impact on sea levels, but the calving has left the Larsen C ice shelf reduced in area by more than 12 per cent.

The Larsen A and B ice shelves, which were situated further north on the Antarctic Peninsula, collapsed in 1995 and 2002, respectively.

"This resulted in the dramatic acceleration of the glaciers behind them, with larger volumes of ice entering the ocean and contributing to sea-level rise," said David Vaughan, glaciologist and director of science at British Antarctic Survey.

"If Larsen C now starts to retreat significantly and eventually collapses, then we will see another contribution to sea level rise," he added.

Big icebergs break off Antarctica naturally, meaning scientists are not linking the rift to manmade climate change.

The ice, however, is a part of the Antarctic peninsula that has warmed quickly in recent decades.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-12/huge-iceberg-breaks-away-from-antarctica-l...

"Abstract:
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet overlies the West Antarctic Rift System about which, due to the comprehensive ice cover, we have only limited and sporadic knowledge of volcanic activity and its extent. Improving our understanding of subglacial volcanic activity across the province is important both for helping to constrain how volcanism and rifting may have influenced ice-sheet growth and decay over previous glacial cycles, and in light of concerns over whether enhanced geo-thermal heat fluxes and subglacial melting may contribute to instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here, we use ice-sheet bed-elevation data to locate individual conical edifices protruding upwards into the ice across West Antarctica, and we propose that these edifices represent subglacial volcanoes. We used aeromagnetic, aerogravity, satellite imagery and databases of confirmed volcanoes to support this interpretation. The overall result presented here constitutes a first inventory of West Antarctica’s subglacial volcanism. We identified 138 volcanoes, 91 of which have not previously been identified, and which are widely distributed throughout the deep basins of West Antarctica, but are especially concentrated and orientated along the >3000 km central axis of the West Antarctic Rift System."


http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/specpubgsl/early/2017/05/26/SP461.7.full.p...

Do you know where the Rift is that the article mentions, Loser Lees?

Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 16^th, 2017 at 12:47pm:



Proof?

https://www.nap.edu/read/12168/chapter/10#94

I suggest you do some reading.

or

"The Thwaites glacier is one of the most rapidly changing in Antarctica. It’s been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks, after scientists suggested that this sector of the huge West Antarctic Ice Sheet was already on route towards collapse due to warming ocean temperatures. A major collapse of this part of the ice sheet could have dire consequences worldwide, with a global sea level rise of potentially up to 1m. Some models suggest this could take place comparatively rapidly, within a few centuries.

But hidden beneath the kilometres of ice in this rapidly changing part of the continent is a largely unexplored geological feature: the West Antarctic Rift System, a strip of volcanic activity thought to extend for more than 3,000km across the Antarctic continent, provides further heat to melt the ice sheet from below."

https://theconversation.com/volcanic-rift-valley-under-antarctica-hotter-than-ex...

They tell me The Conversation is approved reading.

Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 16^th, 2017 at 1:52pm:



maybe you should read the papers.