X-Message-Number: 18843
From: 
Subject: future planet?
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 12:15:21 +1100

From: Bruce Sterling <
Subject: Viridian Note 00302:  The Larsen B Ice Shelf

Key concepts: Antarctica melting

Attention Conservation Notice:  To judge by the number of
people bringing this story to my attention, you've
already heard it.  Here's more of it.

[...]
Special to Viridian Note 00302:  Our acerbic, doom-laden
commentary is guest-supplied by the Viridian Curia's own
Alan Wexelblat! <?

"Gotta love some of these numbers...

    "'A total of about 3,250 sq km of shelf area
disintegrated in a 35-day period beginning on 31 January
2002. Over the last five years, the shelf has lost a total
of 5,700 sq km, and is now about 40 percent the size of
its previous minimum stable extent.

     "'The Larsen B shelf was about 220 m thick. Based on
studies of ice flow and sediment thickness beneath the ice
shelf, scientists believe that it existed for at least 400
years prior to this event, and likely existed since the
end of the last major glaciation 12,000 years ago.'

    "(Yes, that's right.  We've just destroyed a 12,000-
year-old natural feature. Does anyone believe mere cities
will survive?)

     "'For reference, the area lost in this most recent
event dwarfs Rhode Island (2717 sq km) in size. In terms
of volume, the amount of ice released in this short time
is 720 billion tons, enough ice for about 12 trillion 10
kg bags.'

     "(We're missing the standard pop-science visual image
of the size of that stack of icebags.  So here's my off-
hand estimate: that stack would go from the earth to the
moon, back to the earth, and then up to the moon again.)

    "(To attempt to understand a billion tons is a bit
harder.  The US consumes approximately one billion tons of
oil per year.  The entire world consumption of coal was
only 4.7 billion tons.  During the decade of the 1980s,
humans released only about 5.5 billion tons of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere.

     "(Hmm, no, this comparison isn't doing it.  How about
this: the entire water consumption by China's population,
industry, agriculture, cities, etc. for the year 2000 was
635 billion tons.  So global warming just melted 1.1
China-years' worth of polar ice.

     "(Whenever you search on "billion tons" as a phrase in
Google, most of the hits you get back are related to
global warming and fossil fuels.  There's nothing else for
which 'a billion tons' is a normal unit of measurement.)"

O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O
WELL, THERE IT GOES....
WHEN WILL IT STOP?
O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O

and what a pity the mars option is probably out [ jeepers - there goes the
back up plan ]
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-water-science-02b.html

We'll just have to take better care of this planet - let's hope it's not too
late!

long life to you all (including mama earth ----!)
Tracey.

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