Disasterberg?

The predictions of doom are a bit too strong to be taken literally, but something big is afloat. It “will disrupt the world’s ocean currents and climate”“threatening global weather chaos”, they say.

We’ll have to wait and see about that, but one thing’s for sure – the iceberg that broke away from Antarctica at the end of last week was huge. Its area is 14 times the size of the District of Columbia, and more than twice the height of the Washington Monument. This iceberg makes the record snows experienced by Washington D.C. look like a mere dusting.

Such events are considered to be extremely rare, but are predicted to become more become more common as the waters around and air above Antarctica continue to warm. Continuing surveys of the impact of this particularly large iceberg can provide climatologists concrete information about some of the changes we can expect with generations of climate change to come.

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20 Responses to Disasterberg?

  1. Tomas says:

    Oh, well, such is the nartual events of nature….

    • Green Man says:

      Do you have the slightest bit of interest in any aspect of scientific knowledge, outside of what suits your political agenda, Tomas?

  2. Tomas says:

    Sure I do. I understand that the scinece that deals with Global warming is skewed with a politcal agenda. I know that there are those that believe it to be a natural event, (me) and those that believe it’s all civilization’s fault (you). But one thing we both do agree on, I assume, is that man is meager and minor in the universal scope of things to change or prevent anything nature has in mind of doing.

    • Green Man says:

      Tomas, that comment has several flaws in it, so please don’t assume I agree with it.

      First of all, I don’t buy the idea that nature has anything in mind. I don’t believe in the idea that nature is directed by some kind of weird supernatural consciousness.

      Secondly, it’s obviously wrong to claim that people are incapable of changing natural things. Human beings are distinguished from other animals in the remarkable degree that we are able to manipulate nature.

      If you’re talking about the scope of the universe, I will concede that yes, humans are as of yet unable to alter entire galaxy clusters, and that sort of thing. To reduce that concept down to the level of our planet, however, is nonsense.

  3. Tom says:

    Tomas is a great denier like Lord Moncton, and doesn’t want to change anything in his little life to benefit anyone (even his own children or grandchildren), so i won’t waste any more time on him.

    He may even be a corporate apologist:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage

    • Tomas says:

      Naw…just a realist that has seen the fudging of data to further a political agenda: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1254660/Climategate-expert-tells-MPs.html

      • Green Man says:

        Tomas, that’s the slight fudging of a small portion of data that only deals with a small aspect of one part of the prediction of future climate. You’re like someone who’s driving down the highway, and sees the “change oil soon” light come on the dashboard, and screams at the top of his lungs, “Watch out everybody! The car is about to explode!”

        • Tomas says:

          No…where’s there some minor fudging there can be more deeper fudging. Whatever it takjes to get them to see it your way. Wasn’t this the same arguement with Bush and WMDs?

        • Jim says:

          The difference is that Bush withheld the direct evidence on WMD because … there wasn’t any evidence. With global warming, the climate unit in question that had control over only one small slice of data. There are reams and reams and reams of other pieces of data collected by thousands of other people unconnected to the climate unit in question. These pieces of data and the methodologies used to collect the pieces of data are public. By multiple methods, from multiple data sources, global warming has been demonstrated to exist.

          The other difference is that really, you’re talking about yourself and not global warming in the last sentence. Elsewhere, you’ve admitted that you’re willing to lie in order to get people to believe you.

        • Tomas says:

          Oh please…spare me the self rightous horseshit, Jim….

        • Jim says:

          Which piece of what I’ve said is wrong, Tomas?

          The part where you said you’d be willing to lie to get people to believe you? No, you said that. The part where I described the multiple methods and methodologies of climate science? No, that’s accurate too.

          If this makes you feel uncomfortable, that’s your problem, not mine.

  4. Mark says:

    Tomas,
    Regardless of the cause (natural climatic cycle vs human greenhouse gas emissions) do you think that the Earth is currently experiencing dramatic global climate changes?

    • Tomas says:

      Yes, of course. It’s no different from the treat of the last Ice Age, when Neandertahls had to deal with retreating cold weather, that they were built for. Or when The jungles retreated into what is today the African Savannahs and their was mass mirgration “out of Africa”. No different.

      • Mark says:

        But Tomas, that’s where you are very wrong. The current climate change is far different from the end of the last ice age. The changes that took place then were slow and took thousands of years to occur. The changes we are seeing now are on a comparable scale, but are happening over the course of only a century,

        • Tomas says:

          yes, but that’s also due to the fact that the poles are about to shift as well…

        • Green Man says:

          Okay, Predictor Man, can you please name some stocks that will rise sharply tomorrow too, because I need to make some money fast.

          The poles are about to shift? Seriously, how do you know that, and how do you know that has anything to do with the current rapid climate shift…

          … or are you simply being facetious, because you don’t have a genuine argument to counter Mark with?

        • Mark says:

          Tomas,
          Now you’ve moved over into complete fantasy. There is no evidence of a pole shift coming anytime soon. And even if the poles were to shift soon, that couldn’t possibly explain the climate changes we’ve experienced over the past century.

  5. Tom says:

    Mark: Tomas is a simple-minded, corporate agenda spewing, head in the sand Republican.

  6. Tom says:

    some “idea” (corporatist, right-wing Republican, denialist talking points with no data to back it up)

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