Day After Tomorrow, today? Ice Shelf Breaks Off
Ever see the movie The Day After Tomorrow?
Well, it seems to be happening today. The movie starts with a portion of an antarctic ice shelf the size of Rhode Island breaking off. This is the set up in the movie for a potential global warming catastrophe. Well, today, an ice shelf seven times the size of Manhattan just broke off. Scientists were not particularly shocked that this happen, they were more surprised that it happened 15-30 years earlier than anticipated. There is something to be said for the early bird getting the worm, but this is a bit much. Not to mention that from an extremists view point, there might not be any worms to get because they will all be frozen and underwater….hey if you don’t believe me watch the movie, everyone knows Hollywood is never wrong. Ok, so maybe the land hurricanes and tidal waves that take out New York City are not imminent, but it does indicate that global warming is acting faster than anticipated.
This is not the largest ice shelf to break off. The Larsen Ice Shelf, which collapsed in 2002, was much larger. This one dwarfed than Rhode Island. But this newest ice shelf is a piece of one of the largest ice shelfs, the Wilkins Ice Shelf. We are lucky that it is a floating ice shelf so it won’t cause a rise in sea level….seriously though, this is not good. Some scientists are calling this a tipping point in global climate. This chunk is only about 4% of this ice shelf, but another much larger section is being held on by a thin strip of ice. Scientists are worried that this small piece breaking off will set off larger pieces breaking off, kind of like an ice shelf domino effect.
So what are you doing to save the world? because I think we all need to step up our efforts.
Save the World |6 Responses to “Day After Tomorrow, today? Ice Shelf Breaks Off”
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I don’t think there is much we can do to reverse it at this point, but that shouldn’t stop us from learning our lesson and all doing our part to be better stewards of the earth.
Whenever I think about the subject of global warming, I can’t help but wonder if this hasn’t happened dozens (or more) times over the last 50,000+ years.
Humans haven’t been paying attention that long, but we know the world (and particularly Michigan) was shaped by glaciers advancing and retreating. Seems like this is how the earth is shaped and as such, warming and cooling would be a necessary aspect of it. Whether sooner or later than expected seems immaterial when you consider the spans of time involved.
Just my couple of pennies.
Whether or not you believe in global warming and our contributions to it or think that all of this is just a natural part of the earths cycle and think we are arrogant to believe that we can impact the earths natural rhythems, why should that preclude us from trying to be good to the environment? Believe, don’t believe, just conserve.
I’m not challenging the notion that humanity affects the climate of this planet nor am I sharing my perspective as a reason to advocate disregard for conservation or planet friendliness.
My (perhaps poorly articulated) intention was to share a perspective that alludes to the scale of goings on.
My apologies if my comment came across negatively or supportive of greedy human interests to exploit earth’s natural resources as that was in no way my interest.
not at all! =)
I used it as an opportunity to address the fact that there are people who don’t believe in global warming and therefor don’t see the need to be environmentally conscious. That is the part of the logic that always sticks in my craw. Why does it hurt to be green? Why do people fight this? Believe, don’t believe, but lets all recycle! I also think that the earth is in a warming cycle. I do wonder how much our actions are speeding that cycle up though. Sorry if I sounded on the defensive, not my intention either. =)
I don’t have access to the research at my fingertips at the moment, and can’t take the time out of work to find it, but here is something to note about man-made vs. cyclical global warming. The earth does indeed go through warming cycles, but according to the schedule, we are supposed to be in a COOLING cycle at the moment, NOT a warming cycle.
The sad truth is, however, as a collective global culture, we didn’t buy into the notion of man-made global warming early enough and it is unlikely that our small efforts are going to reverse the trend at this point. The breaking off of these ice-shelves means that the process of ice cap melting will only speed up. As the ice caps recede, the warming of the water increases exponentially.
This does NOT mean that we should stop our efforts. It does mean, however, that our governments need to begin to take the next, and more drastic, steps to protect citizens in coastal cities and towns. We also need to step up our efforts to learn sustainable ways of living that are not so dependent on larger systems like electric grids.