Massive glacier collapse

http://unofficialnetworks.com/collapse-video-glacial-size-city-116670/

by relham • 13 years ago

239 261 13 years ago

unofficialnetworks.com

raphdg• 13 years ago

Thought it was AWS again.

benburton• 13 years ago

I was actually pretty worried that I'd lost a bunch of archived data for about 30 seconds. Whew!

cryptoz8• 13 years ago

> Whew!

You're relieved? How? The implications of the film and the clip you see should be far more worrying and scary than some data loss that you should have a backup of anyway.

cryptoz8• 13 years ago

I saw Chasing Ice at the cinema a couple of weeks ago. I went with friends who study adaptation to climate change in the Arctic communities, and all of them, and I too, came out of the movie in a state of minor shock. It's truly incredible how much these intense visuals make this strike home, even for those who are already environmentally aware and focused. It's the kind of movie that solidifies the thoughts I've been having recently: my life absolutely must be about working to mitigate and slow global climate change. Any other career path or choice would be so morally wrong I would have great difficultly living with that decision.

Everyone should see this movie.

purephase3• 13 years ago

Thanks for reminding me. It's been on my to-do list.

This video is simply staggering in it's immensity. For the life of me, it is these events that make me seriously question whether the climate change deniers have ulterior motives. The fact that the calving scale has so dramatically increased in the past 10-20 years is terrifying and how anyone can pass it off without concern is beyond me.

martinced• 13 years ago

What do you mean by "calving scale"? "calving scale" gives about one thousand matches on Google and they don't seem related.

I think that the only ulterior motives deniers have is to refuse to face a simple fact: 8 billion people and all the cattle needed to feed them is probably something that earth cannot widthstand for very long. So either we all start eating insects (they are way more environmentally friendly than cattle) or we start limiting birthrate.

I know that it is estimated that total world population shall go down by 2100 or so but I'm not sure we can wait that long.

One kid per couple. Boom. Problem solved.

But who wants to hear that?

VMG2• 13 years ago

I'm not a denier but I don't find the video particularly impressive. It's massive event from a human perspective, but that doesn't mean anything. The total amount of sea level change from that is probably below 1mm.

You also shouldn't expect deniers or people like me, who think that there is little that can be done to prevent climate change, to be impressed by that footage.

incision• 13 years ago

>For the life of me, it is these events that make me seriously question whether the climate change deniers have ulterior motives.

I don't follow.

I'd think ulterior motives would be all but implicit in any case where there's even a perception of money / power to be gained/lost.

illuminate7• 13 years ago

"make me seriously question whether the climate change deniers have ulterior motives"

The ones in power do, but the followers accept plenty of concepts because they run contrarian to what various "authorities" state and believe.

It follows with plenty of subjects, not just "What do scientists know, anyway?" but plenty of "What does medicine know?" and other fields.

jessriedel2• 13 years ago

> my life absolutely must be about working to mitigate and slow global climate change. Any other career path or choice would be so morally wrong I would have great difficultly living with that decision.

If you don't value future people, then developing-world health interventions can do more good with your time/money. And if you do, then other x-risks overwhelm climate change.

hnriot2• 13 years ago

Yes, we likely all wont live long enough to see climate change. At the rate bacteria are becoming AB resistant you'll like die from an infection that can't be treated long before the sea levels rise a few millimeters.

There are a lot of problems that we need to look at before climate change, like population control, water management, antibiotics etc etc.

gd16• 13 years ago

Why? It's a glacier. A "river of ice". They flow into the ocean. Calving is what they do ffs.

cryptoz8• 13 years ago

I'm not talking about the 4 minute YouTube clip. I'm talking about the feature film. Why be so angry and swear at me for being concerned at the damage humans are causing to their environment?

ChuckMcM6• 13 years ago

my life absolutely must be about working to mitigate and slow global climate change.

Be careful, there are two equally unsupportable view points on climate, one is that the climate isn't changing, and the other is that humans can direct climate change.

We know from records, both recent and geological, that the climate will change, we also know there are things well beyond our foreseeable control that can change climate significantly (volcanic activity, asteroid impact, changes in solar activity, earth-solar orbital variations)

Invest in surviving change.

rdl• 13 years ago

Very few people make the argument that climate change isn't happening. The "anti" argument is that it's not due to mankind's activity, but rather a natural cycle, and has changed in the past, will change in the future. The anti position also questions how much the change is happening -- whether it's a 10-20 year spike vs. a 100 year increase, etc. (and, even if you believe in anthropogenic, it's quite reasonable to think there are natural climate cycles going on as well -- just that mankind's involvement is in addition to this and might push outside the normal range)

Humans also almost assuredly can change climate, if they want. It's a lot easier to cool vs. warm -- set off a bunch of nuclear weapons (easy, produces nuclear winter, although maybe less so than fearmongered); or, be sane, and put a bunch of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to reflect more sunlight and thus cool the Earth.

I personally think it's probably prudent to try to reduce CO2 emissions, but not drastically. The costs (financial and quality of life) of massive reductions in CO2 now are far higher than the costs to remediate with SO2 or other methods, at least until there's more precise data, the costs of reducing CO2 emissions are reduced, etc. We could probably drop them by a good amount in the developed world, but doing so in China/India/etc. would mean an unreasonable restriction on quality of life for billions of people.

kjackson2012• 13 years ago

As usual, ChuckMcM steps in as the voice of complete reason.

I have no doubts that we are undergoing climate change, however, since when have we NOT undergone climate change?

We have had catastrophic ice ages and the Medieval Warming Period, when the Earth was warmer than it is now. All without the help of man-made "greenhouse gases". We know that extreme climate changes have occurred in the PAST, and we know that extreme climate changes will occur in the FUTURE. What makes THIS particular climate change so different and more significant from the previous ones? Just because we happen to be alive for this one? A theory that only answers one particular observation but can't explain other observations doesn't feel particularly valuable to me.

illuminate7• 13 years ago

"Be careful"

I'm fairly certain that assuming we are influencing and that we (society, not necessarily the individual) can do something, anything about climate change would be considered the more careful path.

arethuza3• 13 years ago

Humans appear to be able to impact climate locally, so it would appear to be that there is a reasonable chance that this would scale:

http://www.economist.com/node/17722704

NB My own view on the climate change question is probably summarised as "profoundly confused" - I don't trust much of the popular or political literature on the subject and I don't have the time to review the academic literature (which will be biased anyway - I worked in academia for long enough to know well enough how that game works).

So I find it all too easy to believe that we can have an impact - but I probably agree that directing climate in a constructive way is probably beyond our capabilities as a species.

snowwrestler17• 13 years ago

We are directing climate change right now, it's just that it's unintentional and uncontrolled.

moultano5• 13 years ago

>and the other is that humans can direct climate change.

Are you saying that humans lack the ability to create social structures that can control our emissions? Or are you saying that the IPCC is incorrect in attributing climate change almost entirely to human activity?

scarmig16• 13 years ago

We also know there are things that are well within our control that can change climate significantly.

Just because an asteroid might hit and change the climate doesn't mean we throw our hands up because it doesn't matter. I don't start smoking three packs a day just because there's a chance I could get lung cancer spontaneously.

ap22213• 13 years ago

I am really trying to make sense of this reasoning, but it's not working. Maybe someone could help me out.

It seems like this is saying, 1. (implied) Humans are affecting the climate, but 2. Humans can't direct the change of the climate, and 3. The climate will change, regardless of Humans.

Therefore, 4. (Implied) Negative affects that Humans behavior has on the climate is irrelevant, and 5. Invest in Human survival.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the argument. It seems to assert that individual or collective behavior which may negatively impact the welfare of others is irrelevant, because those others should have been anticipating overall negative impacts and adapting anyway.

Maybe someone could give me an analogy to another uncontrollable phenomenon where it makes sense for Humans to ignore the consequences of their actions which may indirectly (or directly) affect others.

hnriot2• 13 years ago

This sounds like every Berkeley idealist that eve climbed a tree and grew a beard. While I applaud your interest in working to do some good in the world, I'd suggest digging a little deeper than watching a movie. If you have the skills required there are plenty more beneficial projects you might want to get involved in.

cryptoz8• 13 years ago

Way to be condescending. I collect 160,000 atmospheric measurements per day from smartphones and am working my ass off on projects to assist in gathering data to learn about our weather and climate.

genwin• 13 years ago

When assuming that humans are causing the lion's share of it, among the best things to do is to encourage people to have no more than 2 kids, and for them to share the message.

arethuza3• 13 years ago

The BBC had a rather splendid pair of documentaries on glaciers and icebergs:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00tvcnx

The scene where there is a significant calving event on the glacier is pretty awesome....

albemuth• 13 years ago

1:57 looks like a frozen whale, does that even happen?

njharman• 13 years ago

Totally. It made me think this was "fake" and a trailer for "monsters in the ice" or something movie, until, there was just more ice.

reustle• 13 years ago

I'm glad I have tickets to go see Chasing Ice already. If you don't, you should go watch the trailer.

ericcholis• 13 years ago

I've had the pleasure of spending some time in (literally) and around a much smaller glacier. My wife and I spent about a week ice climbing on the Lower Coleman Glacier in Washington.

We also had the pleasure of hearing and witnessing a huge icefall off one of the faces of Mt. Baker. Imagine the loudest thunder you've ever heard, rolling continually for about 5 minutes.

I can only imagine what a fall of this magnitude sounded like in person. One might believe that the earth was splitting in half.

wiredfool• 13 years ago

I watched this video the first time over iPad speakers.

The second time, through good headphones. There's a low rumble and roar that is missed on the smaller speakers. (I should hook up the sub. )

I can't imagine what it must have been like in person.

MichaelGG• 13 years ago

Can anyone recommend a good book (preferably on Kindle) that explains climate change and our actual scientific knowledge? The issue seems to be so politicized that all sources seem incredibly biased. Sure, there might changes happening, but from history, isn't that what the climate does? It seems that one side portrays it as no big deal, and the other says we'll all die in a few decades.

I'm not looking for something telling me how to behave or react, just something that covers how/what we know for certain. Or is the science and understanding required too far out of reach for laymen?

tlrobinson2• 13 years ago

I would also love to know this. I stopped paying attention to the debate because everything I was reading (admittedly not much, and mostly mainstream stuff) seemed highly politicized one way or the other.

moultano5• 13 years ago

Here are the resources realclimate.org suggests. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-...

For the details of the science, they suggest just reading the IPCC reports.

Here's a faq from the IPCC that is basic but thorough. https://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/ar4-wg1-f...

pdonis15• 13 years ago

I would not recommend reading realclimate.org without also reading climate audit and watts up with that:

http://climateaudit.org/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/

guscost5• 13 years ago

Here is an interesting book about the IPCC: http://www.amazon.com/Delinquent-Teenager-Mistaken-Climate-e...

scarmig16• 13 years ago

The IPCC report on the Physical basis of climate change is gonna be your best bet.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents...

(There are doubtlessly a couple people queueing up to say the IPCC's part of some grand socialist conspiracy or had some minor error that's since been corrected in the errata section.)

run4yourlives11• 13 years ago

While I'm not a "denier" per se, the IPCC has made some monumental errors (hockey stick, anyone?) in the past that have really hampered their ability to be a source of non-political "good science".

donpdonp• 13 years ago

NASA's Climate Change Site has compelling, long term environmental measurements, and scientific analysis. The Key Indicators page is especially eye-opening.

http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators

gd16• 13 years ago

Lies, damned lies and charts eh? The CO2 can be put in a better context here:

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.g...

Age of the Earth: 4.5 Billion years. Time we've had weather satellites up: 30 years. Geologic time, it's cool, wrap your head around it.

Fun fact, C3 plant life dies at 220 ppmv or lower CO2. Wheat, rice, soybean, cotton, tomato, barley, potatoes - all gone. No ifs and buts about that one, photosynthesis ceases. That's how dangerously close we were teetering to extinction, with the world's carbon entrapped underground. Luckily, along comes man to dig up fossilized carbon and free it back into the carbon cycle where it came from...

jshen9• 13 years ago

"Sure, there might changes happening, but from history, isn't that what the climate does?"

The fact that the climate has historically changed does not lead to the conclusion that humans can't affect a change in the climate. Nor does it lead to the conclusion that everything will be OK if humans are affecting change.

tlrobinson2• 13 years ago

The parent never implied either of those things. All he was saying was essentially:

"The fact that the climate is changing does not lead to the conclusion that humans are causing that change"

mratzloff2• 13 years ago

I'm reminded of 18th-century views about animal species extinction (that human-caused extinction could not occur).

By the 19th century, that belief had changed. Today, we accept implicitly that human-caused extinction is a fact of life. The rate of extinction for North American freshwater fish species is 877 times the background extinction rate[1]. Of course, there are still people who oppose preservation efforts...

Humans are literally an extinction event. Why is it so hard to accept for some that humans are also responsible for climate change?

[1] http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/08/our...

7952• 13 years ago

The evidence concerning climate change is interesting from an intellectual point of view, but a huge distraction in a practical sense. There are numerous reasons for closing a coal fired power station that are more immediately provable than global warming. The polarized debate is no alternative to a mature and nuanced understanding of the environment. You will never get that from one book.

"Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility"[1] is an excellent discussion on the politics of these questions.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Break-Through-Environmentalism-Politic...

jofer• 13 years ago

If you're looking for more of a narrative, "Thin Ice" by Mark Bowen is an excellent read. While it's not comprehensive, it does a good job of laying out the science. It's a third biography, a third climbing novel, and a third popular science writing, but it's very well done.

run4yourlives11• 13 years ago

The problem is that nobody really "knows" what is going on. Climate science is still very much a work in progress. This is the sad truth of the matter.

Trying to figure out whether or not humans are a direct cause of climate change is like trying to figure out if exposure to a certain household product gives you cancer. People get cancer all the time from various sources, and while certain folk can point directly to said chemical being a carcinogen, even if that agreement exists it starts to open up a whole new debate about whether or not there is enough of a link to matter.

From what I can tell, ignoring the single idiots on either side, we've got:

1. A general consensus that the world is warming;

2. A slightly less strong consensus that humans are contributing to this warming;

3. A majority (but not a consensus, IMO) extending that to humans being the most direct and primary cause of warming;

4. A strong consensus that we should reduce our overall carbon emissions (for obvious reasons), regardless;

5. A small but significant scientific group arguing that we are not the primary cause of warming, even though we may be a contributing factor;

6. A large contingent of non-science laymen that feel that because 5 may be a valid opinion, the entire study of climate science is bunk;

That's basically the best I've found. There are zealots in every camp above. There are also those that feel that each individual point being right means we should either ignore everything else, be it science or consequence.

Given how complex the earth's climate is, and how little we know about things like the sun, earth's climate history, and the long term effects of particular chemical compositions in our atmosphere, I feel we won't progress much past our current stage in enough time to make much a difference overall. IMHO, if we believe that climate change is real, we should be focusing all efforts on dealing with it as best we can.

moultano5• 13 years ago

Your post is unsupported by evidence, and seems to be just lazily taking the middle road in an attempted to appear enlightened. The two sides of the "debate" are not equal. There is not substantial disagreement that the climate is changing and that humans are directly responsible.

See the consensus report here for the net effects of different factors on the climate. The net effect from human activity is the largest component. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-...

snowwrestler17• 13 years ago

It's incredibly depressing to me that this vague and uninformative comment is now rated higher than actual links to actual scientific resources on the topic.

jshen9• 13 years ago

" 5. A small but significant scientific group arguing that we are not the primary cause of warming, even though we may be a contributing factor;"

please link to some source to backup this claim

MaysonL2• 13 years ago

You left out 7 (which encompasses a large part of 5 as well): a well-paid contingent of flacks for the fossil fuel industries. Also, the fact that so far, climate change has been more extreme than most projections.

JPKab6• 13 years ago

Fact: CO2 traps heat. Fact: CO2, which was pulled in by plants and processed into hydrocarbons and was buried in the earth for millions of years, is now being reinjected by use of said hydrocarbons for energy back into the atmosphere after a millions years long abscence. Fact: This is causing a measurable increase in PPM concentrations of CO2.

I think its pretty fucking logical that this would cause or contribute to warming. Obviously figuring out the magnitude is difficult.

justsee3• 13 years ago

> 3. A majority (but not a consensus, IMO) extending that to humans being the most direct and primary cause of warming;

That's just flat out wrong. There is a scientific consensus that humans are responsible for global warming. To elaborate: "That humans are causing global warming is the position of the Academies of Science from 19 countries plus many scientific organizations that study climate science. More specifically, around 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position." [0]

This is based on models that have been refined over decades, and data and analysis from multiple separate scientific disciplines that agree with each other.

Your resignation that we don't 'know' (which alludes to an unscientific requirement for 100% certainty), and that climate science is 'still very much a work in progress' betrays a lack of knowledge about scientific models in general. It is worth reading this section on climate models to understand their purpose, value, and reliability [1].

[0] http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-co...

[1] http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate....

yakiv• 13 years ago

However much or little humans may be contributing to climate change, if it affects us we might want to look into doing something about it.

noiv• 13 years ago

> The problem is that nobody really "knows" what is going on. Climate science is still very much a work in progress. This is the sad truth of the matter.

That's completely irrelevant. If you've read the IPCC bricks, you'd know there is a very sharp line between what's known and what's not and speculating on hidden variables makes no sense at all. But doing nothing or business as usual is not an option, except you pretend to live alone on this planet.

pygy_4• 13 years ago

It may reflect my own biases, but, seeing things from Europe, I have the impression that the issue is only politicized in the US.

Human-made global warming is taken as fact here.

The only ones denying it are (with a few exceptions) oil producers, guzzlers, and those who protect their interests, none of which are active in local media.

richardjordan2• 13 years ago

Being from Europe but living in the US this is pretty much how I see it too. It's a "controversy" in the US because of the mess the political system is in, and because there's such a strong religious movement which funds and propagates any attacks on science that bubble up to the surface.

If there were a scientific consensus that an asteroid was flying at us and with all likelihood, in a decade or two, would wipe out all life on the planet - the only solution being all governments working together and raising huge amounts of $$ to head off disaster - the same faces would crop up attacking the science, and reminding us that if God wanted us to die he'd have sent a plague of locusts.

guscost5• 13 years ago

From over here, most of you folks seem like the sort of collectivist zombies who would have believed Lysenko. Two can play that game.

josho• 13 years ago

Storms of My Grandchildren by Dr. James Hansen. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1608195023

The author is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The book walks through the science with detailed explanations why the science is sound. It is an eye opening read and framed as what the world will be like for our children.

Do give it a read.

Kototama• 13 years ago

Maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c... is a good starting point?

emmelaich• 13 years ago

A friend lectures in the history of climate change -- I'll try and get her reading list and report back here. It's not particularly oriented on recent human caused warming but does include it.

ahi• 13 years ago

See "A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming"

Written by a prof at UMich School of Information, it discusses how we know what we know about climate change.

http://www.amazon.com/Vast-Machine-Computer-Politics-Infrast...

scaphandre• 13 years ago

Perhaps not exactly what you are looking for, but Prof David Mackay (also of Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms) has a cogent quantitative analysis of energy generation, given climate concerns.

I think it's a good read. You can tell he has awareness of the relevant numbers - and doesn't like bull.

Free pdf available. http://www.withouthotair.com/

snowwrestler17• 13 years ago

This is incredible footage, but the amounts of ice in this video (while massive to us) are tiny drops in the bucket of the global ice balance.

I'm uncomfortable when outlet glacier calving events like this--which are very common, geologically speaking--are used as proof of climate change, or to advocate for action on climate change. They are spectacular looking, but I think it's intellectually dishonest. Outlet glaciers advance and retreat constantly, based largely on local climate variations.

The best proof that humans are affecting the climate is the huge bulk of rigorous scientific data that has been collected and analyzed for decades. It's rarely cool-looking, but it's right.

Shivetya2• 13 years ago

I wonder if events in Greenland are similar to those playing out in the Antarctic where movement of under ice water sources is causing fractures or movement in the ice sheets.

I remember reading stories recently about Lake Vostok and the drilling going on there. One item of note was the the location of the under ice water was not a constant and that its shifting could or is affecting the ice sheets above it.

Given that Greenland has a bit more volcanic activity than the Antarctic what role does that play?

arethuza3• 13 years ago

"Given that Greenland has a bit more volcanic activity than the Antarctic"

Do you have any links for that? There is a fair amount of volcanic activity around Antartica and I've never heard of anything on Greenland.

Shivetya2• 13 years ago

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21231380 is the article I read before, specifically the paragraph above a picture of the landmass which starts with the words "Indeed, satellite measurements"

The water moves underneath the sheets causing them to move, this movement has to be part of the reason if not the entire reason sheets fracture.

I am far more the believer that was is under the ice sheet has more affect than what is above it

sethbannon• 13 years ago

As the site is down, here's a direct link to the youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU

Hilyin• 13 years ago

google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:unoffic...

junto• 13 years ago

At 1m50s a huge piece of ancient blue ice rises, reminiscent of a blue whale breaching from the ocean depths. Beautiful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU&t=1m50s

Massive glacier collapse

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