Imagine being on a deserted island with nothing and nobody around. Now, imagine that desert island is a giant iceberg that disconnects from its main land and starts floating into the open ocean. Most would suddenly think, the deserted island is not so bad after all. This scenario sounds like a great Disney movie but a horror film in for reality. A gigantic ice shelf called Wilkins ice shelf, located on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, disconnected and started a journey into the open ocean. This ice shelf quickly broke off but where will the currents of the ocean take it after six months of floating in the open water.
Scientists have stated that global warming is playing a large role in why ice shelfs such as Wilkens ice shelf are breaking of the Antarctic (British Antarctic Survey 2008). The Wilkens was one of the most current ice shelves that has detached from the Antarctic Peninsula in early 2008. In fact, six ice shelves completely collapsed in the last 30 years, due to warming (2008). According to the British Antarctic Survey, “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” (2008). The Wilkins shelf is gigantic in size “At roughly 70.5 degrees south
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Ocean currents play a huge effect on where and what happens to things like icebergs floating in the ocean. Being that the Artic Circumpolar Current, which is also known as the West Wind Drift is the current that flows near where the iceberg broke off, the iceberg probably would be pulled into the eastward flow. This current is unique because it is the only current that goes completely around the globe without interruption, and stays consistent in its path (Sverdrup, Keith, Raphael Kudela, 2013). The iceberg eventually would be effected by the ocean water and break apart into much smaller
The global mean surface temperature is projected to increase by around 0.3 to 4.8 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial values by the end of the 21th century. Therefore, if we continue to not check the anthropogenic emissions, the increase may be around 8 to 10 degrees Celsius, which is incredibly damaging to various ecosystems internationally. It is difficult to determine the possible aftereffects of the ice sheets melting because the equilibrium-response timescales of them is longer than both the atmosphere and ocean. The ice-sheet/ice-shelf model shows that if the atmospheric warming increases 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above the present temperatures, the Antarctic ice shelves will collapse and trigger a centennial scale response –a never-ending
The voyage of Shackleton and his crew was one of many obstacles and complications. Ice is one of the many kinds of danger the Endurance crew came face to face with throughout their adventurous journey. People who are uneducated about how ice can be dangerous won’t understand the level of danger these men were in on a daily basis. One cannot even begin to understand the threat they were in; the stories don’t even do justice to kinds of things these men encountered.
My interest in these places began as a kid, when I found a book about the arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, and the epic survival story of his failed quest to reach the South Pole. On the way, the crew’s ship was trapped between icebergs, and eventually crushed, leaving them
In “Cold Comfort for ‘Global Warming’,” Phillip Stott try’s to make the argument that global warming is nothing to be afraid of because it is not a threat. Unlike Revkin, Stott does not use and expert testimony and very little facts to prove his purpose. In the beginning of the essay, Stott includes information on the collapse of the Larson B ice shelf in Antarctica. He then goes on to state that we have nothing to be worried about because when an ice shelf melts it does not raise sea levels (Stott 306). According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, an ice shelf is a permanent floating sheet of ice that connects directly to a landmass. When Stott stated that the melting of ice shelves does not cause a rise in sea levels he was not considering the indirect consequence of it.
3) First of all, water is incompressible, it means that pressure in the ocean increase with increasing depth as well. Therefore, if all the ice melted, the sea level will drop because water density is way sensitive to changes. When water is heated, molecules move apart and speed up as energy is added.
As important as it is, Arctic coastal sea ice plays a vital role in dynamics of the coastline, covers stretches of open water which serve as important biological habitats, and serves as a platform for a broad range of activities by residents and industries (Druckenmiller et al., 2009). Sea ice is also important because it is used as a platform for harvesting seals and whales in spring, transport of personnel and supplies to camps, and as a network of trails (Druckenmiller et al., 2009). Dangerous effects of climate change include “ice breakouts” which are when large chunks of ice that whalers are using as working areas break off of the main ice blocks and take whaling camps out to sea (Druckenmiller et al.,
When the freezing point for water is 32 degrees fahrenheit (0 degrees celsius) what happens to life beneath the ocean when temperatures plummet in Antarctica? There has been recent discoveries of antifreeze proteins in Antarctic fish. Dr. Arthur DeVries was the first to discover such proteins, in the 1960s, and describe how they bind in the blood of fish to ice crystals and prevent the fish from being frozen.
The ice never melts; it clings to the bottom of the world, spawning winds, storms, and weather that affects the whole planet. And of all the weather it creates, the weather the Antarctic creates for itself is by far the worst. In the winter, the temperature can sink to 100 degrees below fahrenheit. Cold air masses sliding down the sides of the glaciers speed up until they become winds of close to 200 miles per hour. When winter descends on the southern continent,
Antarctica is essential for science because of its enormous effect on the Earth's climate and ocean systems. The Antarctic is critical our understanding of global climate change. Preserved in its four kilometre-thick ice sheet is a unique record of the
In order to provide context for the recent decline of ice in the sea, it is imperative to understand how the sea ice has varied over the past two centuries. Of particular interest, the period around 1920-1940 showed an “increase in almost twice the global average rate in past 100 years. [ ]” The warming during this time can be used to compare the decline of sea ice observed since 1979, but what will also be discussed is how this time period was also quite controversial due to its substantial variance between the official views and views held by other people. The reliability of the sea ice observations during the first half of the 20th century according to some people cannot provide certainty to estimating
Millions of miles of ice and an unfriendly environment make Antarctica an exciting place to study. It is very unique, and doesn’t have the same properties as the other continents do. It is much colder than the rest of the world. For example, the average temperature in Antarctica during the summer months is about 32 degrees fahrenheit! The coldest temperature ever recorded anywhere was in Antarctica, at the Russian Vostok station. It was -129.3 degrees fahrenheit!! In addition, the continent contains 90% of the world’s ice, and it is bigger than the United States. “It is the coldest, windiest, and driest continent in the world”. (Redd) In fact, the average precipitation there is only 2 inches every year. Believe it or not, Antarctica is classified as a desert, because it is so dry, and has such a minimal amount of moisture. “More rain falls in the Sahara Desert”. (Redd) Even though there is very little snow, Antarctica still has massive blizzards. The heavy winds pick up snow from the ground and blow it around. Winds in Antarctica have been known to reach 200 miles
Why don’t Oceans freeze. In many parts of the world , winter temperatures drop low enough to make rivers and lakes freeze. In these parts of the world, the ocean will not freeze even though other water sources does. In the Arctic region, most of it is a tundra, which include frozen soil and animals such as polar bears and penguins. The ocean however is not frozen.
This could be accomplished by employing a submersible robotic probe which would bury its way through the ice, using a nuclear tipped heat source to melt the ice, and explore this vast ocean.
From the movie “Water World” I think that if it really happens, it would be the end of the world because people can’t survive. If the Ice Caps are melting, humans should stop litering and throwing garbage to the sea, it’s because when it floods, it is way worse and they will be disgusted from what they did. Because the sea ice is floating on the ocean already and is in equilibrium with it. Sea ice varies significantly from season to season and from year to year, and the extent of its natural variability is not yet fully known. The scale of ice in the Antartica, 2.3 kilometres thick, if that Ice were to melt we are done for. Not many people realize that Global Warming is happening and doesn’t care about their surroundings, humans need to see what really happens during Global Warming, this cannot be avoided, because bad things will happen when they ignore this. Ice Melting can cause a huge amount of water going into Cities, Provinces, and Countries. The amount of water from big Ice can ruin homes and kill people. Humans
If the entire ice sheet that covers Antarctica was to melt, the ocean would rise 165 feet, devastating American home everywhere. Burning of our fuels such as coal is what increases the rate of the melting. “To be blunt: If we burn it all, we melt it all,” said Ricarda Winkelmann. American and the world would partially, if not completely be submerged in water. It will take a long time for this to happen, but we need to start taking action to protect our future generations. Greenhouse gases cause the process of the melting and our fuel-usage is the cause of that.