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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (1648)	4/17/2000 10:51:00 PM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12235

Another giganto iceberg breaks off from Antarctica. (I thought all of the Al Gore "global warming is real, not imagined" crowd were using these icebergs as further evidence supporting the possibility of global warming). (See part I made in bold print). *********************************** April 11, 2000 Two Gigantic Icebergs Break Free From the Antarctic Ice Cap By HENRY FOUNTAIN wo mammoth icebergs have broken off the Antarctic ice cap in the last several weeks, including one that is the largest in more than four decades. The larger berg, which is about 185 miles long by 23 miles wide, or slightly smaller in area than Connecticut, was first noticed in satellite photographs on March 17 by meteorologists at McMurdo Station, the main American base in Antarctica. The iceberg broke off the Ross Ice Shelf, a vast floating carpet of ice on the continent's west side. Then, on March 31, Matthew Lazzara, a meteorologist with the Antarctic Meteorological Research Center at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, noticed that another giant berg had calved off just to the east of the one found earlier. The second iceberg, which was about one-third the size of the first, later broke into four pieces. Mr. Lazzara said that as the larger iceberg broke off, it apparently hit the ice sheet, causing the second berg to form. "It's basically like having a couple of parallel-parked cars, and one jostles the other," he said. The larger iceberg, which has been named B-15 following the nomenclature of Antarctic ice research, is apparently exceeded only by one that formed in 1956 and was reported by the crew of a Navy icebreaker to be about 208 miles long by 60 miles wide. Mr. Lazzara said that ice in this part of Antarctica, which moves toward the sea at a rate of about a half a mile per year, is expected to break off giant bergs every 50 to 100 years, so the new iceberg fits nicely into the time frame. It will probably break into several pieces as it moves out into the Ross Sea, Mr. Lazzara said. One or more large pieces could eventually make it through the Antarctic pack ice into the Southern Ocean, where they could threaten shipping. That is what happened to a large berg, B-10A, that formed in the Amundsen Sea in 1992 and eventually made its way to the open ocean. When last seen in August 1999, the berg, though shrinking, was halfway to Tierra del Fuego. B-15 is about a quarter-mile thick, with all but about 100 feet of that below the water line. Mr. Lazzara said that he and his colleagues had done some rough calculations and estimated that the iceberg contained some 3.4 trillion gallons of water. By contrast, the reservoir system that serves New York City holds about 550 billion gallons. Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company