I don't see much melting, I see a lot of shearing. Melting ice is rounded, the edges of that shelf are sharp. And before anyone criticizes my interpretation, I have flown ice reconnaissance missions in the Arctic and taken several course in the subject; I doubt if physics is different in Antarctica.

I've been exchanging e-mails with Mr. Scambos today. I appreciate him taking the time to do this, but I believe his analysis is flawed.

1. The images show no signs of melting. They do show lots of cracks and fractures.

2. The three summer months prior to the "collapse" were all well below normal temperatures in Antarctica.
http://climate.uah.edu/dec2007.htm
http://climate.uah.edu/jan2008.htm
http://climate.uah.edu/feb2008.htm

3. An engineer should have been brought in to do a mechanical failure analysis before jumping to conclusions about the cause.

Antarctic Ice Shelf Retreats Happened Before
ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2005) The retreat of Antarctic ice shelves is not new according to research published this week (24 Feb) in the journal Geology by scientists from Universities of Durham, Edinburgh and British Antarctic Survey (BAS). A study of George VI Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula is the first to show that this currently ‘healthy’ ice shelf experienced an extensive retreat about 9500 years ago, more than anything seen in recent years.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050224115901.htm

"Ice shelf collapse is not as simple as we first thought,"* said Professor Glasser, lead author of the paper...."our new study shows that ice-shelf break up is not controlled simply by climate. A number of other atmospheric, oceanic and glaciological factors are involved. For example, the location and spacing of fractures on the ice shelf such as crevasses and rifts are very important too because they determine how strong or weak the ice shelf is"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080210100441.htm

Aviator,

Drink the Kool-Aid. It is definitely melting from warm air. Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado said so. Why can't you just give it up and assimilate?

Speaking of Scambos, he must need more funding and thus the obligatory warm air statement. He has a different take on the Larsen B ice shelf breakup:

N.F. GLASSER, T.A. SCAMBOS. 2008. A structural glaciological analysis of the 2002 Larsen B ice shelf collapse. J. Glaciol. 54(184), 3-16.

This is the same link I've been referring to over the last few threads. How quickly one forgets, once one partakes of the Kool-Aid, eh?

Maybe Al promised him a good chunk of that $300,000,000.

On further reflection and after sipping some of that delicious Kool-Aid, I can now see where the warm air has melted this ice shelf. Looking at the photo above, you can see that the melting only occurred where the cracks are located. You can see the melt water in the cracks.

/sarc off

NEAT picture! Reminds me of some earthquake photos. Looks almost like fractured concrete streets.
Now, let me see. Glacier, moving ice, off land, floating on the ocean. No, this can't be normal. Must be GW.
Somebody want to explain to me how ice shelves can exist at all? It appears to me wonderful that this shelf could be hundreds of years old.

A new ice shelf in Canada.

Tons of Snow Test a Place Where Cold Is No Stranger By IAN AUSTEN

OTTAWA - People here are divided between those longing for a few more inches of snow to set a record and others who think the 14 feet that has already landed, and mostly lingered, is more than enough.

No one needs to ask Luc Guertin his view. His front yard on a suburban street here features his personal monument to eastern Canada's unusually prolonged, relentless and snowy winter. A snow wall, about 18 feet high, 6 to 10 feet wide and 30 feet long, rises along one edge of the driveway.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/world/americas/31snow.html?ei=5065&en=36bdab2bb3f6d083&ex=1207540800&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

Check out how Hansen started manipulating the US temperature data after 1999. This was his original 1999 graph which showed the 1930s much warmer.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/fig1x.gif

And this is his most recent graph which has adjusted earlier periods downwards, and more recent periods upwards.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.lrg.gif

He knocked 0.3 degrees off 1934, and added about the same on to post 1985 temperatures. This completely changes the appearance of the graph.

Once a scientist starts down the dark path of manipulating data to suit a political agenda, I suppose there is no turning back.

Notice the obvious contradiction in the press release.

How can they say the breakup is unpresedented, when the shelf has only been there for a couple of hundred years???????

Quote 1)
The breakout is the latest drama in a region of Antarctica that has experienced unprecedented warming over the last 50 years.
Quote 2)
Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado says,
"We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years. But warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a break-up."

I don't see much melting, I see a lot of shearing. Melting ice is rounded, the edges of that shelf are sharp.

I haven't seen anybody dispute this observation. In this annotated image of the region of the collapse, you can see that another large area of the shelf was severely weakened in 1993. Thus, a very thin strand of strong ice is now the only restraint on the rest of the Wilkins shelf.

The annual average temperature at the Wilkins shelf has increased by about 3 degrees C. in the last fifty years. The BAS researchers blame the collapses on this increase.

As I understand it, the concern is that the base of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is below sea level. When sea-water penetrates to the base, it essentially lubricates the ice/bedrock interface, speeding the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet itself. The ice shelves (like Wilkins) act as brakes to slow any movement of the ice sheet.

The collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, if it happens, will cause a significant increase in worldwide sea level.

Volcanoes erupt that have been dormant for thousand's of years, earthquakes happen in places that have never seen them before. This is normal folks, stop trying to tie it to global warming, it's just the natural goings on of our good earth.

Collapsing ice shelf due to 24 hours of daylight in the southern hemisphere's summer now headed into fall. Collapsing ice shelf NOT DUE TO MY EXHALING CO2!!!! Collapsing ice shelf NOT DUE TO MY DRIVING MY CAR, OR EATING THAT HAMBURGER YESTERDAY!!!! (oh, and Mark and BT, it was yum yum yummy! Can't wait for my next beef meal!) Collapsing ice shelf DUE TO NATURAL OCCURRANCES WHICH THE EARTH DOES ON IT'S OWN!!!!! Can we please get over this propaganda pap????

Fascinating to look at. It looks more like an event after some disturbance like an earthquake.

Just another mild, uneventful La Nina winter. Like Hansen predicted.

FORT KENT, Maine - It's official. The 2007-08 snow season in northern Maine is one for the record books. Just in time for the start of spring.

The old record of 181.1 inches of snow recorded in Caribou, set in 1955, was shattered by noontime Friday when the National Weather Service in Caribou recorded 182.5 inches of snow since the start of the season.

http://bangornews.com/news/t/aroostook.aspx?articleid=161983&zoneid=175

Global warming is now causing extreme cold. It must be all that trapped heat.

Global warming blamed for unusual cold spell

As Hong Kong shivers through its second-longest cold spell since 1885, scientists point to global warming to explain the abnormal cold weather phenomenon worldwide.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=11&art_id=61512&sid=17581089&con_type=1

Typical Hysteric snake oil. Its as Aviator said, s-h-e-a-r-i-n-g, on the one hand, people claim the shelfs slow down the glaciers, but , on the other hand, that does not stop the pressure of the glaciers onto the shelfs with record ice accumulating, thus eventual failure of the shelfs all over the continent due to extreme glacial ice, a Natural Course....also, ocean currents are fairly constant, waves are fairly constant in the calm, but winter storms have drastic effect, there is also volcanic activity under the ice, what is this 'warming'? Data has it that there has been constant cooling for the last 5 years or so, and the handy oceanic robots that all came home to roost befuddled all those 'scientists' who had expected with a certainty that the data would show warming and it did not....in fact, they are still scratching their heads....so much for science when 'scientists' do predeterminations.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f1f2f75f-802a-23ad-4701-a92b4ebbccbf&Issue_id

Awesome film. Makes me forget the squabble about warming, and just feel wonder.

However, to return to the squabble, on the opposite side of Antarctica is the Amory Ice Shelf, the edge of which has appeared as a blue line on anomaly maps for a number of years, which means it is extending further and further over the sea. Eventually the sea-facing edge will break off. Then it will appear as a red line, and likely generate hoop-la if the media can get pictures.

Actually you can get just as alarmed about these ice shelves extending. A true alarmist can see it as proof the entire Ice-cap is draining out into the sea, and the middle of Antarctica will be ice-free by next Thursday.

It is neat to employ Google-earth, and zoom down on the Amory Ice Shelf, and then work your way inland. These humongous glaciers are feeding the ice shelf, draining the mile-thick ice around the American Highlands.

It is hard to get your mind around the scale you are dealing with. Even the little glaciers are bigger than Greenland's biggest. Once you comprehend the scale, it totally blows you away. Even the huge chunk displayed in the above video is like a flake of dandruff, compared to the entirety of that continent.

But there I go again. The wonder of it all is making me forget the squabble.

bt,

As I understand it, the concern is that the base of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is below sea level. When sea-water penetrates to the base, it essentially lubricates the ice/bedrock interface, speeding the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet itself. The ice shelves (like Wilkins) act as brakes to slow any movement of the ice sheet.

So, how much did sea level rise when the West Antarctic Ice Sheet slid into the ocean back during Medieval Times (that would be about 1,000 years ago)?

Hi BT,

The weight of ice sheets causes the (floating) earth's crust underneath to sink into the mantle. As a result, ice sheets create their own depressed bowls. Thus it is impossible for an ice sheet to slide off, just as it is impossible for a piece of ice cream to slide out of a stationary bowl on your table.

The people claiming that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may collapse are apparently lacking in some fundamental scientific knowledge, like the rest of their alarmist brethren.

It isn't going to happen. There are huge active volcanoes underneath the West Antarctic ice sheet, and I'm sure that they provide more heat than the wide sale cooling which has occurred over the last 20 years.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/antarctic_temps.AVH1982-2004.jpg

to quote the fast food commercial of the 70's
WHERES THE MELT????

3 degrees c rise in the past 50 years
WHAT WE WENT FROM -50 F TO -40 F

i looked at the video and agree that it looks more like earthquake style fracturing than melting caused this. could constant exposure to wave action and the sheer weight of the shelf ultimately lead to its own demise.

oiznop im planning to send in a skeptic article to my local paper the contra costa times to be politically correct and not get viciously attacked can i get your permission to plagerize
your GLOBULL WARMING phrase

thanks and regards loub

Why is it so hard for scientists to simply say "they don't know"?

It's obvious the ice is cracking off, not melting off the Antarctic convenient. Like with the discovery that the Gakkel Ridge under the Arctic Ocean was spewing more lava than anyone thought, maybe we will figure out what is heating up the Wilkins ice shelf one day.

Cool video, that sucker is really cracking up.

A devastating rebuttal of Hansen's Greenland hysteria - from a Los Alamos Labs Fellow.

The Greenland warming of the 1995-2005 period is similar to the warming of 1920-1930, although the rate of temperature increase was by about 50% higher during the 1920-1930 warming period.

a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920 to 1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for period of warming to arise. The observed 1995-2005 temperature increase seems to be within a natural variability of Greenland climate. A general increase in solar activity [Scafetta and West, 2006] since 1990s can be a contributing factor as well as the sea surface temperature changes of tropical ocean [Hoerling et al., 2001].

http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Chylek/greenland_warming.html

Neat pictures !

Since all of this is said to be caused by AGW....where is all that melting again ?

I remember the neat pictures of the Greenland glaciers (in the summer) and all the accumulations of water on the surface.

If the oceans are the same temps (or even colder) than in the past (a previous blog) and the air is not melting the surface ice, and the pressures exerted from the INCREASING glaciers against the shelves, then how can they say global warming is involved ?

Is global warming now responsible for the regional increases in glaciers that is causing the over extension of these shelves?

I originally came to this global warming debate site completely ignorant of all facts, other than the assumption that the earth was in a major melt-down mode.

I can now say, beyond my own reasonable doubt, that anyone who believes in AGW is not a free thinker. They are simply followers of a religion being preached by a "profit" (intentional misspelling of prophet) in the name of a world not in danger.

I believe the early proponents of AGW had very good intentions. But, somewhere along the way their intentions got ambushed by the profit motive. However, over the past 10 years their ideas have been shown to be extremely flawed. Their predictions never actually happen. They 'adjust' temperature readings to fit their own ideas/agendas. They design models to show accelerated warmth. They use propaganda pictures of polar bears and collapsing ice shelfs as scare tactics (regardless of truths that polar bear #s continue to increase). They refuse to debate. They attempt to silence opposition by acting as if it some fringe group of the uneducated/uninformed. Some have suggested making it criminal to dissent from the AGW religion.....all of this happens as the world cools? Simply Amazing.

PH. Thanks for making me a convert over these many months. You may be a true prophet giving sight to the blind who visit this blog.

Reply: Wow! PH is now a prophet. Quite impressive!

PH

http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Solar_Arch_NY_Mar2_08.pdf

Aren't ice shelves supposed to break apart and reform?

Or are they like everything else, and supposed to be static, never change, and conform to some average.

I guess you won't attract followers or the media unless you recruit them to your cause with alarmism. In an effort to learn more about this report I visited ICECAP and read a report from Joe D'Aleo that helped put this into perspective.
He states:
"Let's put this in perspective. The account may be misinterpreted by some as the ice cap or a significant (vast) portion is collapsing. In reality it and all the former shelves that collapsed are small and most near the Antarctic peninsula which sticks well out from Antarctica into the currents and winds of the South Atlantic and lies in a tectonically active region with surface and subsurface active volcanic activity. The vast continent has actually cooled since 1979."

After reading the BAS report I got the impression that this was a massive collapse but it turns out that Wilkins is 6000 square miles and represents only 0.39% of the Antarctic ice sheet. The part that broke off represents only 2.67% of Wilkins which D'Aleo describes as "a little like an icicle falling from a snow and ice cover roof. No big deal (unless you are standing beneath it)."

Here is a link to the article:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/MISLEADING_REPORTS_ABOUT_ANTARCTICA.pdf