Unprecedented N. Atlantic Iceberg Armada: Starting Gun Of A Heinrich Event?

[hatrack]

“I have about a decade of experience with the Ice Patrol, and in my time here, and talking with people who have been here longer, I’ve never seen anything like this or heard of anything like this before,” — Gabrielle McGrath Coast Guard Commander of the US Ice Patrol.

“A Heinrich event is a phenomenon in which large armadas of icebergs break off from glaciers and traverse the North Atlantic.” — Commons

“Consider the situation during past ice sheet disintegrations. In melt-water pulse 1A, about 14,000 years ago, sea level rose about 20 meters in approximately 400 years (Kienast et al., 2003). That is an average of 1 meter of sea level rise every 20 years.” — Dr. James Hansen

*****

This week an unprecedented 481 icebergs swarmed into the shipping lanes of a storm-tossed North Atlantic. Strong hurricane force winds had ripped these bergs from their sea ice moored haven of Baffin Bay and thrust them into the ocean waters off Newfoundland. The week before, there were only 37 such icebergs in the Atlantic’s far northern waters. And the new number this week is nearly 6 times the annual average for this time of year at 83. To be very clear, there is no record, at present, of such a large surge of icebergs entering these waters in so short a period at any time in the modern reckoning.

(Many glaciers along the periphery of Greenland have passed the point of no return. In other words, at present temperatures, these glaciers will completely melt. In the past, such major melting events have released ‘armadas of icebergs’ into the North Atlantic in instances called Heinrich Events. Video source: Chasing Ice.)

Likely Precursor to a Heinrich Event

During recent years, rates of iceberg discharge from Greenland have been increasing. More icebergs are calving from great masses of ice like the Jackobshavn Glacier along the west-central coast of Greenland. Speed of ice discharge from Jackobshavn has about doubled during recent years. And new studies indicate that ice mass loss all around coastal Greenland is accelerating even as many glaciers have now reached a point of no return and will inevitably melt into the North Atlantic due to the human-forced warming of our world. As a result, Greenland is producing more icebergs. And this year, it appears that this glacial melt acceleration combined with a very powerful storm to flood the North Atlantic with the bergs at a hither-to unprecedented rate.

?w=600
(This week, a massive swarm of icebergs that calved from Greenland and entered Baffin Bay have been kicked into the North Atlantic by a powerful storm system. To be clear, this is the kind of thing you’d expect at the start of a Heinrich Event. Image source: U.S. Coastguard.)

Right now, no one wants to make the conclusion that we are starting to enter a Heinrich Event. Or worse — that the present rate of warming at 30 times faster than at the end of the last ice age is rapidly putting us in peril. But the geological evidence for just such an event was a proliferation of ice-rafted boulders from swarms of icebergs that subsequently melted and dropped their rock loads onto the sea floor of the North Atlantic. Heinrich Events are triggered by rapid glacial melt and destabilization of Greenland and Antarctic glaciers as warming airs and waters force the great ice masses past key tipping points.

EDIT

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/04/08/an-armada-of-ice-bergs-has-just-invaded-the-north-atlantic/#comments

[Victor_c3]

1. Isn't this just Chinese propaganda?

What are the sources? I'm guessing it's fake news from Chinese sources. Remember, our great president told us that global warming is a Chinese hoax.



Seriously, this climate change stuff is getting scary.

[lunasun]

2. One of the worst of the worst that could happen . Heinrich event

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

9. The other is tsunamis

It happened during the last glacial retreat http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160323-the-terrifying-tsunami-that-devastated-britain

And the expansion and release of undersea methane caused devastating tsunamis in prehistoric Britain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide

No one ever talks about this. I wonder why? (Not a sarcastic question.)

[lunasun]

10. not only not talking about it , many refuse to listen. yes large methane release

is another one of the worse of the worst

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Never let voters forget it was official RepubliCON policy to sabotage climate mitigation efforts. nt

[democrank]

4. I'm trying to absorb what I just saw.

"Chinese hoax"

[byronius]

5. hatrack rules.

[csziggy]

6. In depth article about the decline of Greenland's glaciers

Huffington Post, but a very good article.

Greenland’s Coastal Ice Caps Have Melted Past The Point Of No Return
04/06/2017 11:31 am ET
By Dominique Mosbergen

<SNIP>

In a study published in Nature Communications on Friday, scientists based in Europe and the U.S. describe how the glaciers and ice caps that cover tens of thousands of square miles along the coast of Greenland have reached a critical “tipping point,” beyond which further melting is unavoidable.

Troublingly, the ice had already surpassed this tipping point 20 years ago, the researchers said — only the technology to confirm this hadn’t existed until now.

“These peripheral glaciers and ice caps can be thought of as colonies of ice that are in rapid decline, many of which will likely disappear in the near future,” said Ian Howat, study co-author and glaciologist at Ohio State University, in a statement last week. “In that sense, you could say that they’re ‘doomed.’”

The complete melting of Greenland’s coastal ice could raise global sea levels by about 1.5 inches, researchers said. It’s an increase that could impact some islands and low-lying coastal areas through flooding, erosion and other effects. But according to the study’s authors, there’s much more at stake than even that.

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/greenland-coastal-ice-caps-melting_us_58e5f007e4b0fe4ce08840b1?bs

[certainot]

7. yet we continue to allow 88 universities support 257 gw-denying limbaugh stations

The 88 universities listed below broadcast sports on 257 of Rush Limbaugh’s 600 radio stations.

The universities have no excuse not to look for apolitical alternatives and are legitimate places to protest any issue related to the Trump agenda.

The school receives very little licensing revenue from radio compared with TV but the association is vital for the stations and the GOP. The station gets to use the school logos, mascot, and community standing to attract advertisers to pay for partisan messaging on public airwaves.

Those stations have played an essential role in selling and excusing the Republican attack on democracy for the last 30 years and creating the alternate reality that allowed Donald Trump to enter the White House. Except for occasional innocuous programming they operate exclusively for the benefit of the Republican Party. They are coordinated nationally and locally with the GOP and their allied think tanks and are now being used to excuse Trump’s actions, attack his critics, and divert attention from Trump-Russian investigations.

If the GOP paid $1000 for one hour of radio time, each station, at 15 hours/day x 5 days per week would be worth $75,000/week. 257 stations would be worth $19MIL/week, or more than $1BIL/year. 1200 stations are worth about $18MIL/day or $5BIL/year FREE to sell the Republican agenda.

Protests at state capitols and other locations can be ignored by media and politicians because Republican radio station yell over them for weeks after protestors have gone home. Talk show hosts attack and mischaracterize protestors, their tactics, and their objectives. They also encourage local officials and police to break protests up and excuse violence directed at protestors. They will repeat fabricated stories of protestor violence, looting, etc.

Any university supporting Republican talk radio is shooting itself in the foot, demeaning its mission statement and professed goals and values, and is undermining the interests of its students, faculty, employees, and surrounding communities.

Those stations are licensed to operate in the public interest but they all:

- deny global warming
- fight environmental regulation and always support fossil fuel solutions over renewables
- fight health care reform
- attack free speech: they have sold “money is speech” and “corporations are people” memes for decades, arguing for media deregulation, defunding of public programming like PBS and NPR, and an end to net neutrality
- fight campaign finance reform
- fight to defund and privatize public education, attack teachers and work to lower their salaries, attack their unions, push voucher solutions and standardized testing, and obstruct efforts to lower student debt
- use public airwaves to sell voter suppression legislation with lies and exaggeration about voter fraud, millions of “illegal aliens” and dead people voting for Democrats, etc.
- use and excuse racism, misogyny, homophobia, and hate to divide communities and push voter suppression and other anti-democratic Republican legislation
- work to deny reproductive rights for women and access to contraception, defund Planned Parenthood and other services, and excuse misogyny
- fight efforts to increase minimum wage, and advocate eliminating it
- undermine the economic and environmental interests of their communities
- use public airways to repeat propaganda that is demonstrably false and continue to lie after being corrected, use call screeners to exclude dissenting opinions
- coordinate with and provide free publicity for Republican politicians and think tanks when needed for elections, passing legislation, and attacking critics and opponents
- while railing against “political correctness”, they loudly demand regressive conformity

Many of those university-radio relationships began when the stations broadcast music and general non-partisan programming. Their programming became exclusively partisan in 1987 when Ronald Reagan ‘killed’ the Fairness Doctrine and Republicans began buying up radio stations to create a talk radio monopoly to propagandize the country.

Usually a licensing company like Learfield Sports pays the university for the broadcasting rights and either resells them to the radio station or pays the radio station to broadcast the games, such as with the University of New Mexico. In some cases there is no bidding process.

Why not replace loud Republican radio stations with multiple smaller apolitical stations? There are many sports talk stations around the country that want to broadcast those sports events and would be more appropriate. They talk sports all day. They sell sports and sports merchandise, not politics.

If some licensing revenue is lost can donors be found to make up the difference? If there is a loss, how does it compare with the harm it is doing to its own principles, students, and surrounding communities? Not to mention the damage from defunding public education.

Is there an opportunity for a licensing company that can find apolitical alternatives to reach similar audiences?

Since those stations sometimes weigh in directly on elections for university regents and selection of administration, including presidents and chancellors - is there a conflict of interest?

Is a university that supports Republican radio violating its 501c3 tax exempt status?

Here is the list of universities with the number of Limbaugh stations for each school and the total for each state. The list is incomplete. It does not include stations that do not headline Limbaugh. For instance, the University of Wisconsin broadcasts on 5 Limbaugh stations but also on 2 stations that headline Sean Hannity. Some universities may have made changes recently.

ALABAMA 8  Auburn 3, Alabama 2, Southern Alabama 2, Troy 1
ARIZONA 2 Arizona St. 1, Arizona 1
ARKANSAS 3 Arkansas 3
CALIFORNIA 5 San Jose State 2, USC 2, Fresno St. 1
COLORADO 4 Air Force 2, Colorado 1, Colorado State 1
CONNECTICUT 1 Connecticut 1
FLORIDA 20 Florida 10, Florida St. 4 Miami 2, South Florida 2, Central Florida 2
GEORGIA 14 Georgia 7, Georgia Tech 5, Georgia Southern 2
IDAHO 7  Boise St. 4, Idaho 3
ILLINOIS 7 Illinois 7
INDIANA 11 Notre Dame 6, Purdue 4, Indiana 1
IOWA 5 Iowa 4, Iowa St. 1
KANSAS 4 Kansas St. 2, Kansas 1, Wichita St. 1
KENTUCKY 3 Louisville 2, Kentucky 1
LOUSIANA 3 LSU 2, La.-Monroe 1
MARYLAND 2 Maryland 2
MASSACHUSETTS 1 Boston College 1
MICHIGAN 19 Michigan St. 11, Michigan 7, Western Michigan 1
MINNESOTA 4 Minnesota 4
MISSISSIPPI 6 Mississippi St. 3, Mississippi 2, Southern Miss 1
MISSOURI 6 Missouri 6
NEBRASKA 6 Nebraska 6
NEVADA 1 Nevada 1
NEW JERSEY 2 Rutgers 1, Seton Hall 1
NEW MEXICO 3 New Mexico 2, New Mexico St. 1
NEW YORK 7 Syracuse 6, Army 1
NORTH CAROLINA 16 North Carolina 8, North Carolina State 3, Duke 3, East Carolina 2
OHIO 10 Ohio St. 6, Toledo 1, Dayton 1, Bowling Green 1, Xavier 1
OKLAHOMA 5 Oklahoma St. 3, Oklahoma 1, Oral Roberts 1
OREGON 12 Oregon St. 7, Oregon 5
PENNSYLVANIA 14 Penn St. 11, Pittsburgh 2, Temple 1
SOUTH CAROLINA 4 South Carolina 2, Clemson 2
TENNESSEE 7 Tennessee 4, Memphis 3
TEXAS 16 Texas A&M 9, Texas Tech 4, Texas 1, Texas Christian 1, Baylor 1
UTAH 1 Utah St. 1
VIRGINIA 6 Virginia Tech 5, Virginia 1
WASHINGTON 6 Washington 5, Washington St. 1
WEST VIRGINIA 2 West Virginia 1, Marshall 1
WISCONSIN 5 Wisconsin 5

There is no excuse for any school to support Trump radio.

[DK504]

8. How many millennia just went thundering into the ocean?

It looked like a portion of the Rockies crumbling. That makes your entire body tense up, hold your breath and pray.

[NickB79]

11. "sea level rose about 20 meters in approximately 400 years"

Combined with:

"the present rate of warming at 30 times faster than at the end of the last ice age is rapidly putting us in peril."

Makes me think we'll be seeing that 20 meter sea level rise a little faster than expected.