From NASA, who has moved up from “Manhattans” to quarter states as a scale comparison unit:
Antarctic Glacier Calves Iceberg One-Fourth Size of Rhode Island
This week a European Earth-observing satellite confirmed that a large iceberg broke off of Pine Island Glacier, one of Antarctica’s largest and fastest moving ice streams.
The rift that led to the new iceberg was discovered in October 2011 during NASA’s Operation IceBridge flights over the continent. The rift soon became the focus of international scientific attention. Seeing the rift grow and eventually form a 280-square-mile ice island gave researchers an opportunity to gather data that promises to improve our understanding of how glaciers calve.
“Calving is a hot topic in cryospheric research. The physics behind the calving process are highly complex,” said Michael Studinger, IceBridge project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Although calving events like this are a regular and important part of an ice sheet’s life cycle—Pine Island Glacier previously spawned large icebergs in 2001 and 2007—they often raise questions about how ice sheet flow is changing and what the future might hold. Computer models are one of the methods researchers use to project future ice sheet changes, but calving is a complicated process that is not well represented in continent-scale models.
Days after spotting the rift, IceBridge researchers flew a survey along 18 miles of the crack to measure its width and depth and collect other data such as ice shelf thickness. “It was a great opportunity to fly a suite of instruments you can’t use from space and gather high-resolution data on the rift,” said Studinger.
Soon after, researchers at the German Aerospace Center, or DLR, started keeping a close eye on the crack from space with their TerraSAR-X satellite. Because TerraSAR-X uses a radar instrument it is able to make observations even during the dark winter months and through clouds. “Since October 2011, the evolution of the Pine Island Glacier terminus area has been monitored more intensively,” said Dana Floricioiu, a DLR research scientist, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.
When IceBridge scientists returned to Pine Island Glacier in October of 2012, the rift had widened and was joined by a second crack first spotted that May. The close-up data gathered by the instruments aboard NASA’s DC-8 gave a view of the ice that added to TerraSAR-X observations. “It’s a perspective I hadn’t had before,” said Joseph MacGregor, a glaciologist at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin, one of IceBridge’s partnering organizations. “Before, I was always looking nearly straight down.”
In the time since discovering the rift scientists have been gathering data on how changes in the environment might affect calving rates. For ocean-terminating glaciers like Pine Island Glacier the calving process takes place in a floating ice shelf where stresses like wind and ocean currents cause icebergs to break off. By gathering data on changes to ocean temperature and increasing surface melt rates, researchers are working toward implementing the physics of calving—a calving law—in computer simulations.
The data collected since 2011 is one step in building an understanding of calving and further research and cooperation is needed to understand not only calving but how Antarctica’s ice sheets and glaciers will change in the future. The unique combination of airborne and orbiting instruments that closely watched this recent calving event was the result of a spontaneous collaboration between researchers in the field. “It was at the level of colleagues coming together,” said Studinger. “It was a really nice collaboration.”
For more information on Operation Ice Bridge, visit:
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Lets see ice calving.
Step 1. Ice grow over ocean
Step 2. Tidal action and wave action moves ice up and down.
Step 3. Ice weakens and occasional warm water rots ice from underneath.
Step 4. Ice cracks somewhere.
Step 5. Ice breaks up.
There, no need for models.
“The physics behind the calving process are highly complex”
Translation: We have no idea what we are talking about.
And, of course, floating glaciers do no raise sea level.
“researchers are working toward implementing the physics of calving—a calving law—in computer simulations.”
Wonderful. More computer models, that may or may not bear any semblance to reality. What good will they do? I suppose if you can predict a calving event to the millisecond, cruise ships could be there to witness the event.
The physics behind the calving process are highly complex,” said Michael Studinger
======
…and we need to know this………….why?
“Computer models are one of the methods researchers use to project future ice sheet changes, but calving is a complicated process that is not well represented in continent-scale models.”
So yet more confirmation that computer models are simply rubbish!
Perhaps they should use Connecticut as a unit of measure as the headline appears to have lost a CT from the middle of Antarctica
WOW – slowly they move to the sea . . . no one knew this before grant science money was wasted.
End Grant science . . take away the $$$$ from the federal government . . end the EPA, USFG, NASA climate studies, and the University E=GREEN groups grants. This program cuts of the money and power in DC.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/take-action.html
Antony,
Your headline has a typo. “Antarica”
[Fixed, thanks. — mod.]
Pine Island Glacier previously spawned large icebergs in 2001 and 2007
==============
2007-2001 = 6
2007 + 6 = 2013
right on schedule. talk about complex. prediction. Next large iceberg
2013 + 6 = 2019
can I have my trillion dollar grant for a new computer to help protect the earth from the ravages of
global warming,climate change,climate disruption, titanic icebergs.Hmm. Isn’t Houston, TX or Harris County, TX the size of Rhode Island? That would mean the iceberg is still smaller than a US city
?!I found it interesting that the size of the ice was in Rhode Island units. So I thought I would look at the Arctic panic in units of area of states equivalent.
If the Arctic summer melt was to reduce the Arctic ice to 4 Million square kilometers then all the CAGW Jeremiahs would be out in force talking of death spirals and ‘iceless poles’ and of course weather wierding due to lack of ice…
So what is 4 million square kilometers in the new ‘State Area Metric’?
4 million square kilometers is equivalent to the area of: Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, :Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia combined
As you can see that would be hardly enough room to swing a polar bear.
(check my maths using values from http://geography.about.com/od/usmaps/a/states-area.htm)
Rhode Island is 1544 square miles, so 1/4 of that would be about 386 square miles.
That equals (rounded) 17 Manhattans. Handy conversion factor: 1 Rhode Island
= 67.13 Manhattans.
Isn’t a 1/4 RI smaller than 1 Manhattan?
cn
okay…/sarc
Does size matter?
Doug Procttor says:
July 13, 2013 at 7:15 am
And, of course, floating glaciers do no raise sea level.
>>>>>>>
I tried to explain this simple fact to a warmer once. He explained that if he filled his glass with soda, and then threw in ice cubes, the glass would overflow. He had no clue how stupid his response was.
He wasn’t a blond, he was a warmer!
I thought Rhode Islands is an area measurement for ranches and farms in Australia.
“Kaboom says:
July 13, 2013 at 10:00 am”
No! That’s New South Wales, it’s bigger than Texas!
Save the Glaciers – save the climate – stop CO2 production – create millions of jobs . . free GREEN energy . .
A BOLD NEW ENERGY POLICY TO SAVE THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE!!!
We put millions of skilled workers on manufacturing jobs building 500 to 1,000 Nuclear power plant of a low cost standard design. This will provide all the energy to accomplish a full restoration of our industrial base. How will this happen you ask?
First we “MINE” the oceans for gold, silver, copper, uranium, methane, manganese and other valuable minerals and metals. It has been estimated that it will be profitable to mine gold from the seas at around $ 3,000 per ounce. Second we use cheap nuclear power to extract these metals which could make a profit to pay off the national debt. Third we use the byproduct “WATER” to farm the huge vacant dry south west feeding the entire planet with low cost food.
Finally we use the cheap nuclear power to build factories to manufacture everything the entire planet needs and we return to zero unemployment and can pay good wages because we have free energy that makes a profit in it’s creation.The money generated can payoff all debts, build nuclear reprocessing plants, research and develop a system to render nuclear waste harmless.
Just think, full employment, no energy crisis ever, gold to make money valuable, make the dollar the strongest currency on earth, end inflation, end government debt. Just imagine “AMERICA REBORN AND THE DREAM FULFILLED!!!
And the benefit to mankind from such research is what, exactly?
What’s all the fuss. A calving Pine Island glacier tells me that the glacier is healthy and growing. Receding glaciers are what warmists should worry themselves about.
…“Calving is a hot topic in cryospheric research. The physics behind the calving process are highly complex,” said Michael Studinger, IceBridge project scientist…
Like the rest of you, I just can’t see that. It’s a long bar, pushed out over a less supportive medium than land. At some point, it breaks. That’s 1st year undergraduate engineering.
You can MAKE it much more complex – you can model each individual wave if you want. But, in its essentials, it’s a ‘bend a bar until it breaks’ problem. One which we understand fairly well….
Rhode Island has enough to be mocked for without picking on its size. Realize that it was chartered as a colony in 1663 by Charles the Second (http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/organic/1663-cri.htm) because Massachusetts and Connecticut kept encroaching on its borders. 1200 square miles (land area) was a lot of territory for the small number of colonists back then.
Glacier calving- another alarmist wet dream.
R a = q L (2a)
where
R a = reaction force in A (N)
q = uniform load (N/m, N/mm, lb/in)
L = length of cantilever beam (m, mm, in)
Hey guys try cantilever stress as a starting point for why glaciers calve out over water.
Ice Burg ahead…
We have gone almost a century since the great ice burgs which sank boats like Titanic were common place. Now we reenter a cycle of ice increase and calving of new massive ice burgs.
And our scientists didn’t see this one coming? Are they too vested in Gullible Warming to do real science these days?