Emergency airlift at McMurdo in strife

[XemaSab]

An Antarctic ice shelf used as a runway is breaking away forcing an emergency airlift to close summer operations on the continent.

But Sanson said they have a complication now that the Ross Ice Shelf is separating quickly from Ross Island where Scott Base and McMurdo are.

"We are seeing the biggest ever break out of the Ross Ice Shelf in 15 years, our supply lines to the airfield are getting affected."

"The ice is breaking up," he said.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4708428/Emergency-airlift-at-McMurdo-in-strife

[DeSwiss]

1. K&R n/t

[Tesha]

2. "There's no global warming. There's no Global Warming. There's *NO GLOBAL WARMING*!"

[WhiteTara]

3. thanks for the shoes!

I was going to let you know there's a certain amount of clicking that goes on with that incantation!

Wait! Or was that Tinkerbell?

[Tesha]

4. ( :-) ) If it were Tinkerbell, the chant would have had to have been...

"I believe there's no global warming.
I believe there's NO Global Warming.
I *BELIEVE* there's *NO GLOABAL WARMING*!"

But I don't think any amount of chanting would
keep that particular fairy-tale belief alive.

Tesha

[WhiteTara]

5. So true! Our climate has been changed forever

It reminds me of some movie I saw about the end of some civilization...the premise was that the "gods" demanded sacrifice of trees for the people's survival. Some smarter people noticed that the trees were almost gone and the land was hotter and there was not as much rain. They pleaded with the ones who were trying to appease the gods to stop with the tree slaughter to no avail. They cut the very last tree. The gods didn't give them anything and they sat in the sun and ....
the end.

[happyslug]

6. We are entering the "Dangerous Month for the Antarctic"

McMurdo and the Ross Ice Sheet are in and part of the "West Antarctic Ice Sheet" (WAIS). The WAIS has the ability to raise world wide sea levels almost over night by about 20 feet. The reason for this is the WAIS is is a ice sheet that is grounded BELOW sea level i.e. it is NOT floating on water like an ice shelf, but is directly atop ground that is below sea level (they may be some water/slush underneath the ice Sheet to act as a lubricate but the ice exceeds the water the ice would be if it is melted, in ice shelves, the ice floats on top of water, so when it melts there is NOT net increase in water levels, thus ice sheets are more dangerous then ice shelves).

Now, every March, the Antarctic is at is lowest amount of ice, thus if you are going to see a rapid deterioration of the WAIS it will be in March or about early April (By the middle of April temperatures in Antarctic during the Southern Hemisphere' autumn, starts an expansion of Antarctic Ice, so the problem then waits anther year.

The various islands among the Ross Ice Sheet is believed to hold the Ice Sheet together, thus the importance of the phase "Ross Ice Shelf is separating quickly from Ross Island". Now that is the Ice Shelf not the Ross Ice Sheet, but the shelf is believe to protect the ice sheet from the full affect of the increase in Global temperatures. If to much of the Ice Shelves go, the ice sheet will follow and IF that happens world wide water levels raise 20 feet.

Hopefully this is NOT the trigger to set free the whole Ice Sheet, but many scientists believe it has happened before. See the "Madhouse Century" for more details.

http://www.imaja.com/as/environment/can/journal/madhousecentury.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6393/is_n3_v13/ai_n28708530/
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/02/is-madhouse-century-knocking-at-our.html

I do not want to sound like the boy who called wolf, and thus will NOT predict it will occur this year, but I have known about the possibility for many years and have mentioned it before on DU:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=41468&mesg_id=41745