An iceberg roughly the size of Delaware and 600 feet thick is about to break off from one of the largest floating ice shelves in Antarctica, and the prospect is precipitating fierce debate as to whether global warming is the cause.
The iceberg is part of the Larsen C ice shelf in the Weddell Sea, south of the tip of South America.
The calving has been expected; a crack in the ice shelf had grown to be over 100 miles long in recent months. According to scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine, only three miles of ice still connect the iceberg to the shelf. Some scientists believe the calving could trigger the destabilization of the Larsen C ice shelf.
And so, an argument has been launched as to the reasons for the iceberg’s break:
In this corner, Helen Amana Fricker, an Antarctic scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, arguing against climate change: “We do not need to press the panic button for Larsen C. Large calving events such as this are normal processes of a healthy ice sheet, ones that have occurred for decades, centuries, millennia — on cycles that are much longer than a human or satellite lifetime.”
In this corner, Eric Rignot, a NASA and University of California, Irvine, expert on Antarctica: “Of course this is due to climate warming in the peninsula.”
Those supporting the climate change argument point to the Larsen A ice shelf, which is farther north than Larsen C, collapsing in 1995, and Larsen B doing the same thing in 2002.
Fricker noted, “Yes, I agree Larsen C is ‘next in line’ southwards after Larsen A and B. However, there is actually no research showing that Larsen C is getting thinner and flowing faster. In fact, in recent years, it is the opposite.”
Larsen C is huge but still dwarfed by the Ross Ice Shelf and Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf.
Read more at Daily Wire
Just wait for Greenpest(Greenpeace)to use this to make more suckers cough up cash so they can fuel their ships Arctic Sunrise and Rainbow Warrior II as well as those annoying little zodiacs with lots of Fossil Fuels Wait for Gore and DiCaprio to use this as fake news to blame Trump for pulling america out of that Paris Accord and wait for his little spoiled brattiness Robert Kennedy Jr to demand trumps arrest as Climate Crinimal
The Larsen Shelf Area Sea Ice segments “A”, “B”, and now “C” are bottom melting then breaking up due to proven high geologically induced ocean seafloor heat flow, not manmade Global Warming. The quality, amount, and relevancy of evidence supporting this contention is overwhelming (see “Geological forces fueling West Antarctica’s Larsen Ice Shelf Cracks” at Climate Change Dispatch”). As an example the Larsen Shelf lies along and owes its very existence to active faulting and ocean floor volcanic eruptions to the 3,500 mile long West Antarctic Rift / Fault System. This rift is literally tearing the entire Antarctic Continent apart and in the process feeding hot lava and hot fluids upward from deep within the Earth to the surface where it is expulsed by 61 known erupting, active, or semi-active volcanoes. Importantly the division between the Larsen “A” and “B” segments is known / well mapped 50 mile by 10 mile active volcanic plateau that is home to 17 active land and ocean volcanoes.
Manmade atmospheric Global Warming is NOT the cause of Larsen Shelf Area Sea break-up, including the on-going break-up of the “C” segment.