Huge Crack Discovered in Antarctic Glacier

[hue]

Source: space.com/ Our Amazing Planet

A huge, emerging crack has been discoered in one of Antarctica's glaciers, with a NASA plane mission providing the first-ever detailed airborne measurements of a major iceberg breakup in progress.

Read more: http://www.space.com/13480-huge-crack-discovered-antarctic-glacier.html

[DCBob]

1. the last sentence in the article is significant..

"It is likely that once the iceberg floats away, the leading edge of the ice shelf will have receded farther than at any time since its location was first recorded in the 1940s."

[PETRUS]

2. Yikes.

[jwirr]

3. Is this ocean ice or on land ice? Just interested how much it will influence

sea levels.

[johnnypneumatic]

4. unclear, but click on "it is big and unstable" to another story

and it says:
"Researchers are closely watching Pine Island Glacier and other ice shelves in Antarctica for their potential to dramatically alter coastlines worldwide. Global sea levels are currently rising at about 0.12 inches (3 millimeters) per year, and one estimate suggests the total collapse of Pine Island Glacier and its tributaries could raise the sea level by 9 inches (24 centimeters)."

[jwirr]

7. Wow. Thank you. I sounds like things are coming to a head.

[padruig]

8. land ice

Pine Island is part of a very large landed glacial field. The tongue of the glacier is free floating and heavily undercut. Studies conducted recently by autonomous submersible found that the basal layer was significantly undercut back from its grounding line, the point where the glacial ice no longer rests on the sea bed.

[jberryhill]

5. Bigger than Herman Cain's?

[padruig]

6. Pine Island Glacier

This is the Pine Island Glacier. It is one of the most remote, largest and fastest moving glacial masses in Antarctica.

It is considered the 'weak underbelly' of Western Antarctica.

The ice in central flow upstream from the grounding line moves at up to 1.5km per year (roughly 13.5 feet per day) and at the terminus up to 2.5km per year (roughly 27 feet per day.)

The ice averages about 1.2 km thick.

http://earth.esa.int/workshops/ers97/papers/lucchitta/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Island_Glacier

www-radar.jpl.nasa.gov/glacier/Papers/34A037.pdf

nsidc.org/data/velmap/pine_getz/pine86_88/pine86_88.html

Its estimated that should the entire mass of this glacier melt to the ocean it would raise global sea levels by as much as 0.7m (based on BEDMAP model estimating the mass of Pine Island above sea level at 250,590 cubic km.)

[Mnemosyne]

10. Being a land glacier, could it slip into the ocean very quickly? Welcome padruig! n/t

[PuffedMica]

9. Evidence of global warming has no effect on Republicans

They will not believe the Earth is warming until lower Manhattan is under water.

[al bupp]

11. Three cheers for science in general...

and for NASA in particular. This mission is proof that some of our tax money is well-spent.