In a sign that global warming is increasing, Connecticut has been used as the metric for describing the size of an ice shelf collapse in Antarctica. (h/t Oliver Willis)
Some 220 square miles of ice has collapsed in Antarctica and an ice shelf about the size of Connecticut is “hanging by a thread,†the British Antarctic Survey said Tuesday, blaming global warming.
“We are in for a lot more events like this,†said professor Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Scambos alerted the British Antarctic Survey after he noticed part of the Wilkins ice shelf disintegrating on February 28, when he was looking at NASA satellite images.
In my experience, Rhode Island has traditionally been the global warming ice shelf metric.
Just to be clear, I’m not trying to make light of global warming. It’s a huge issue about which the U.S., by and large, has its collective head stuck in the sand. Just noting the tendency of journalists to use small New England states in these stories.
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It isn’t global warming.
Bin Laden is down there with a huge ice pick planning our doom…
Good thing the Courier Press called him out.
Think Bush would notice if it got…say…the size of Maine?
Bah…let’s find us a Texas sized chunk and get it over with.
That, or use it as the official measurement. i.e. “The iceberg was about 1/20th the size of Texas”.
I like Jasons’ plan. Let’s see, if you sucked $1.9 million dollars out of every square mile of Texas (including the 5,363 square miles under water), you could pay for the war in Iraq…
My newspaper last night described the chunk as the size of seven Manhattans; and I don’t think they meant the drink!
Wow, that is sobering, Brenda. I guess using Texas is effective!
Since you have the calculator out, what is that per square mile of the USA? Or Iraq itself?
Only the square mileage that voted for Bush should have to pay.
Wait– the square footage I’m living in went for Bush, by two votes.
Never mind.
T-for once Lake County would meet a tax we wouldn’t have to pay;-)