“Ever recorded by video” is the key here.
“Insofar as evidence of climate change goes, it’s hard to beat watching a glacier comparable in size to Manhattan disintegrate in front of your eyes.”
But as we reported in 1998, large calving is nothing new:
For a little perspective, we go to page 748 of the 1996 edition of The American Navigator, the prestigious Naval text updated continuously since 1799 (sometimes referred to as “The Bowditch.”)
The text reads “In 1854 and 1855, several ships in the South Atlantic reported a crescent-shaped iceberg with one horn 40 miles long, the other 60 miles long, and with an embayment 40 miles wide between the tips. In 1927 a berg 100 miles long, 100 miles wide, and 130 feet high above the water was reported. The largest iceberg ever reported was sighted in 1956 by the USS Glacier, a U. S. Navy icebreaker, about 150 miles west of Scott Island. This berg was 60 miles wide and 208 miles long, more than twice the size of Connecticut. Icebergs ten miles or more in length have been seen on many occasions in the Antarctic.”
Notice that this last iceberg was more than 4 times bigger than that little “ice cube” noted in the Washington Post story. And by some miracle, the world did not come to an end after the discovery of this giant.
So last week’s iceberg was not so extraordinary — except that it was perhaps the first linked to the dreaded global warming.
My mistake on the citation of the largest berg. My comments about your interpretation of the significance of ice bergs stands, however.
Well, your research is as shoddy as your interpretation of it so at least you’re consistent…..consistently shoddy. The ice berg you cited was not the biggest ever sighted (ha!). Here’s a description of it from a Wikipedia entry:
“The largest iceberg on record was an Antarctic tabular iceberg of over 31,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi) [335 by 97 kilometres (208 by 60 mi)] sighted 150 miles (240 km) west of Scott Island, in the South Pacific Ocean, by the USS Glacier on November 12, 1956. This iceberg was larger than Belgium.[5]”
As for your interpretation (or rather projection) that the size of ice bergs is related to global warming, I don’t think any climate scientist has ever made that claim. In just the last week a new report on the Antarctic ice shelves tells us that it’s thinning will soon result in much more active calving but, in fact, the resulting ice bergs are likely to be smaller as they become more numerous. The net result is more melting ice in the oceans (lots and lots more). So, as usual, science deniers get the facts wrong. But that is essential to being able to continue to deny the real facts, doesn’t it? It’s a closed loop of ignorance, deliberately inflicted.
The audio is as impressive as the video. I suggest you employ your sub-woofer for extra effect. An absolutely stunning example of natural phenomena. Until their “super” computers can model next monday’s weather, the Greens are only guessing when they try to model the weather in 50 years.
Howdy pockets
I knew the comments would be like that. I expected the article itself would be, so I read a couple of paragraphs and it was. The video is still ever so cool. Nature is a thing of power and beauty and awe and sometimes ugly as well. H’m, like most of our sweethearts.
I made the mistake of reading the HuffPo comments after the article. These guys are real blind followers of the whole AGW thing. It is funny to watch them use Pascal’s Wager to defend their AGW stance, though.
The problem is too many people hear or see the word “ever” and miss the rest.
And the announcers CBS, NPR etc will emphasize the word “ever” when they report this.
“Ever recorded on video” sounds like forever to today’s geniuses. Of course, video (in some form or another) has been around for around 100 years, while glaciers have been around for millions……..
The footage is cool. The idea that it relates to climate change or warming is foolishness. It’s like the polar bear on the ice floe: this happens in all climate phases.
I’ve also seen a nifty clip, many years ago, of an iceberg that calved underwater and popped to the surface. The camera operator was astounded to have caught the event.