Enormous iceberg spotted

EDITORIAL NOTE: It's finals week at the college.  That means exams to grade.  That means research papers to grade.  I'm busy.  Posts will probably be short.  Sorry.

Iceberg ahead!

That's what NASA satellites are saying.  An enormous slab of ice that is six times the size of Manhattan has broken away from Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier.  It is headed out to sea and may cause problems for shipping.  And that problem is going to be around for the foreseeable future as it is estimated the iceberg will take about a year to melt.  

In doing a bit more digging, turns out this story reported two weeks ago by Unexplained Mysteries actually happened last year according to this Washington Post article.  I'm blogging about it anyway for a few reasons.  For one, it's a big-ass iceberg and that's something rather amazing, especially when you view the before and after pictures at the Post of its separating from the glacier.  The other is...you guessed it...how much is this iceberg related to climate change?

The Post article points out that this iceberg's formation is called a "calving event" and it happens in Antarctica every few years.  As usual, a coterie of scientists are concerned that phenomena such as this are happening at an accelerated rate due to climate change.  It would stand to reason.  Temperatures are rising and that means ice will be melting.  That means rising sea levels.  It's gonna get wet, folks.  Buy boots.  If you're involved in the shipping industry at all, then watch for more icebergs.

Then again, I have found a mental mechanism to help me deal with my angst over the climate issue.  To paraphrase Giorgio Tsoukalos: "aliens."

Yeah, just imagine that aliens are terraforming our planet towards their own ends.  I have no idea whether or not the human race would be a part of these plans or if it is designed to result in our extinction, but the result is the same: we're off the hook.  The change in environment had nothing to do with greed, short-sightedness, or captains of industry.  It was all aliens.

Hey have you seen The Arrival?  Don't let the presence of Charlie Sheen fool you.  It's quite an interesting film.  See it and you may join me in my semi-healthy delusion.





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