Ice turning to water, glaciers on the move - and a planet in peril

[MonteSano]

Nothing else quite like it has happened at any time in the past 10,000 years. In just over a month an entire Antarctic ice shelf, bigger than a small country, disintegrated and disappeared, altering world atlases for ever.

A new study shows that the catastrophic collapse of the Larsen B shelf, four and a half years ago, was man-made, not an "act of God". It is thought to have been the first time that a major disaster has been proved to have been caused by global warming.

Research at the blue-chip British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, published last week, has identified the causes of "dramatic warming" of the eastern side of the Antarctic peninsula, where the vast, 3,250 sq km expanse of ice used to be. Gareth Marshall, the lead author of the study, says it marks "the first time that anyone has been able to demonstrate a physical process directly linking the break-up of the Larsen ice shelf to human activity".

The research has also linked the collapse to the hole in the Earth's protective ozone layer that opens up over the Antarctic every southern spring. Nasa scientists reported last week that this year's hole, at a massive 10.6m square miles, is bigger than ever.


http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1919117.ece

[kestrel91316]

1. Well think of it this way - try to see the bright side - once all the

prehistoric "fossil" ice has melted, we won't have spend all that time, energy, and MONEY studying ice cores and their atmospheric makeup to find out about previous climate changes.

With the money saved, we can give the rich folks even more tax cuts.

[RC]

3. And once all the coal and oil is used up, the earth

will reabsorb the excess CO2 and the earth will cool off and what is left of the human race will freeze, naked in front of their caves.

[kestrel91316]

2. Oops - DUPE - delete