Iceberg in the Antarctic, Ocean Currents
I was listening to CBC in the car on the way home and apparently a huge iceberg has broken off a glacier in Antarctica and is threatening the ocean circulation patterns. The new 965 square mile iceberg is the size of the state of Connecticut.
Why is this an issue? Well this isn’t the biggest recorded piece to break off the massive Mertz Glacier in Antarctica. But satellites tell us that giant peninsula of ice has now been reduced to half it’s size. Again…why should we care? Well because when all that fresh water melts it could affect global ocean circulation by upsetting salinity levels in the ocean. Those ocean currents pump warm water north and moderate the climate. Screw up those currents and the weather changes could be drastic.
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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