Antarctic Melt: A CO2 Warning?
By Michelle Krebs March 28, 2008
In an event that provides ammunition for global-warming doomsayers, a 160-square-mile portion of a massive Antarctic ice shelf “collapsed†earlier this week, according to an Associated Press report.
The gargantuan chunk of disintegrating ice was about seven times the size of Manhattan island, but was just a 4 percent portion of the Wilkins ice shelf in western Antarctica from which it finally broke off after scientists noted the beginning of its “runaway disintegration†Feb. 28, the AP story said.
The event apparently is not unlike the more typical occurrence of an iceberg breaking away from the Antarctic mainland, but larger chunks breaking away and disintegrating is said to be happening more often in recent decades.
The story said the remainder of the Wilkins shelf is approximately the size of Connecticut â and at least one researcher has predicted the Wilkins Shelf will collapse within 15 years.
Striking visual depictions of breakaway ice were a central component of former Vice President Al Goreâs 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," which has become a totem for advocates of measures to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and other initiatives to curb global warming.â¢
Bill Visnic is a senior editor of Edmundsâ AutoObserver, specializing in product and technical areas. He was senior technical editor at Ward's Automotive Group.
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Climate change is inevitable. Global warming is one manifestation of it, and carbon dioxide is the favorite whipping boy. Even if we were to institute a global moratorium on all combustion, the planet's thermometer would still keep edging upward. We the people, along with whales, baby seals, cattle yadayada exhale carbon dioxide. We can read reports of tons of dust infalling from space every day, geothermal vents deep in the ocean spewing hot magma, magnetic storms on the sun driving the solar wind, occasionally lighting up the atmosphere with Northern or Southern Lights. All make some contribution to climate change and global warming more specifically.
I believe that we should be good stewards of the Earth's resources - waste not want not. But anytime, anywhere, any oxygen comes together with fuel and heat you get carbon dioxide; in a coal-fired power plant or in your pet hamster.
Nice try, but "we the people, baby whales and cattle....." do not consume fossil fuels for dinner and as such have absolutely nothing to do with the net percentage of carbon dioxide found in the atmosphere. That increase, which is not in dispute whatsoever by anyone on either side of the debate is entirely the consequence of the burning of fossil fuels. To try to compare the respiration of animals with the trip by motorized transport down to the corner store is a feeble attempt to obfuscate the issue.
Blake, why blame the use of fossil fuels if Mars and Venus and Mercury are being affected the exact same way as Earth? Sounds like the sun is primarily to blame for climate change, not fossil fuel usage. Can fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions exacerbate this? Maybe, but I would start with the increase in solar radiation hitting our planet before blaming our energy use and policies, and adjust accordingly.
For the record, I work in the auto industry and love high performance cars and motorcycles as much as the next gearhead. I just object to the non-sequiter offered up by fulcrumb in the first post. Again, the rise in concentrations of C02 can only be attributed to the use of fossil fuels. I have heard the postulate that sunspot activity explains climate change. I hope that proves to be true but that idea is pretty recent and remains to be proven. What data do you have (please cite the source if possible) which shows that temperatures on our neighboring planets have seen increases in temperatures.
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