Talk:Larsen Ice Shelf

A news item involving Larsen Ice Shelf was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 12 July 2017.

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We can't have this

Three consecutive sentences in the article's introduction:

The Larsen C ice shelf appears to be stable.
Scientists predict that the Larsen C ice shelf has at least three more years until it disintegrates.
If global warming continues at the rate it is now, the Larsen C ice shelf has most likely one year until it is destroyed.

Wow! Talk about glaring inconsistencies. We have to find sources and harmonize these statements, but how should we deal with them in the meantime? __meco (talk) 16:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed this passage to be less contradictory - it still needs sources and is perhaps slightly vague but from a language point of view it makes it clearer that the shelf is stable now but likely to disintegrate in the near future. --Sparrow 08 (talk) 22:01, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

POV

Re "... then the enormous Larsen Ice Shelf viewed in 1893 by Carl Anton Larsen and his crew aboard the Jason will largely be gone in just over a century after first discovery, which is a mere flash in geologic time." -- I've added a "POV-statement" tag:

This is a strikingly non-language-neutral description of the situation. After all, in "geologic time", much larger ice sheets have come and gone "in mere flashes": Depending on one's POV, 10,000 years could be considered a mere flash. Is there any reference that quantifies rates of disappearance of other ice shelves, at other warm periods; e.g. Medieval Warm Period? Or further back, at even warmer times? I'd also like pointers to glacier melting, if appropriate.

It SEEMS impressive if such a large feature were to disappear in such a short time. But the tone here is far from neutral; what is the scientific significance of this?

How do I, as a layman, know whether it is usual or unusual for such disappearances, at similar warm periods? After all, for the past 400 years we have been coming out of the Little Ice Age, so our perspective about what is "normal" is biased by that. It's difficult to judge how serious climate changes caused by any man-made global warming is, without comparison to historical natural climate changes.

The section author has wandered from the properly attributed discussion of disappearance within a decade from now, to a POV-toned comment, about this speculated change. "enormous", "flash of geologic time", the anthrocentric inclusion of "Carl Anton Larsen and his crew aboard the Jason" -- is there a more neutral way to quantify the unusualness of such an event?

Do we even HAVE any scientific information about how unusual such (rapid) events are, over geologic time? Maybe during high temperature periods, this is quite common. I don't know one way or the other .. what is the evidence?

While I was at it, I looked at source 10/Rignot. The original text has a more neutral flavor, so I replaced the restatement with the actual original, which says "continued warming could lead to its breakup within the next decade.". The important distinction here, which is also discussed in source 9/RRR, is that the breakup is only expected if the warming trend continues. Clearly, the Wikipedia section editor had a POV that the warming trend WILL continue; to be neutral, be explicit that we are talking about what happens "IF". ToolmakerSteve (talk) 19:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No matter how much one may not like the statement

'"'then the enormous Larsen Ice Shelf viewed in 1893 by Carl Anton Larsen and his crew aboard the Jason will largely be gone in just over a century after first discovery, which is a mere flash in geologic time"

there is nothing about it that is not simply the fact. Nothing is asserted about how unusual such events are. Abuse of Wikipedia:POV makes it impossible for fastidious editors to employ the tag. --Wetman (talk) 00:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's so much of a POV issue as it is one of original research. Since the sentence has no ref, and it doesn't really add anything to the article, I think we should get rid of it. Any objections?--CurtisSwain (talk) 00:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Day After Tomorrow quote

Curious, isn't it that this: Well, the last chunk of ice that broke off was about the size of the state of Texas. (and not Rhode Island) was said in the movie? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wayfarer (talk • contribs) 06:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No. The Dennis Quaid character said, "...Rhode Island."--CurtisSwain (talk) 06:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Popular culture section

I removed most of the popular culture section, thinking the references were trivial, but another editor restored them asking for discussion first. See WP:IPC for the relevant essay; to be honest I think even the Al Gore reference doesn't qualify, but I think the others should definitely go. It's not that there is no connection between this article and the information listed, but that someone coming to this article is very unlikely to be interested in, for example, the band British Sea Power. An article on that band might legitimately link here, of course -- a fan of that band might be interested in this article, but the reverse is unlikely to be true. In addition, per WP:IPC, there is no indication that any of these connections are covered in secondary sources or have any notability -- the primary source isn't a good way to demonstrate this. I'd like to remove these again; comments? Mike Christie (talk) 13:52, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No response, so I'm going to delete it; if there is disagreement please comment here and we can discuss. Mike Christie (talk) 00:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Add northern Larsen C shows melting now, per SciAm witness?

Scientists Trek to Collapsing Glaciers to Assess Antarctica’s Meltdown and Sea-Level Rise. As glaciers collapse toward the sea, scientists struggle to figure out how fast the southern continent is melting and what that means for sea-level rise by Douglas Fox Scientific American July 16, 2012 108.73.114.104 (talk) 06:03, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Correction corrected due to misquoted source

I am new to exactly how this works, and apologise in advance for my purile, ineffective, non standard and unconventional sourcing, but I made an alteration to this artcle with reference to rate of global temperature increase, "correcting" 0.5°C/decade to 0.05°C/decade. My alteration was later reversed, with the explanation :(Reverted good faith edits by Pdadme (talk): That's not what the sources say. Both sources in para give in figures compatible with 0.5C/decade. The article states that temperature increases at .5C/decade, which is simply incorrect. The article which is quoted as a source (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Climate_of_Antarctica#Climate_change) states: The continent-wide average surface temperature trend of Antarctica is positive and significant at >0.05°C/decade since 1957.[16][17][18][19] The West Antarctic ice sheet has warmed by more than 0.1°C/decade in the last 50 years, and is strongest in winter and spring. The IPCC's article: Projections of Future Changes in Climate (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html) accessed 12/08/2014 gives the VERY highest worst case scenario estimate of possible temperature increase over the next 100 years as only 4.0°C, equating to 0.4°C/decade. This is the worst case scenario for the NEXT 100 years. More realistic estimates are in the region of 1.5-3.0°C/century. Whilst I do not have the time myself to spend hours sifting and sourcing, the IPCC is surely the "go to" source for GMST figures, and they show a temperature increase of 0.5°C/century over the last 100 years, NOT 0.5°C/decade. I am a firm believer in the need to minimise anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and to do all the other things that "everyone" says we should do for the good of the planet. Stating incorrect figures and incorrectly quoting sources is counterproductive. If something is shown and proven to be blatantly untrue, people take objection to being misled and the boy who cried wolf syndrome defeats the genuine objective of raising awarenessPdadme (talk) 00:04, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, the source of the information is not the Wikipedia article that you mentioned. We never cite information to other Wikipedia articles. The actual source is found by following the link in the little blue number at the end of the sentence. It is this article which actually says "Researchers have measured a 2.5C increase in average temperatures in the Antarctic peninsula over the past 50 years". The IPCC figures, as well as being future predictions rather than past actual measurements, are for global averages. There is a world of difference between a global average and a local change. The primary source for the figure is probably this Nature article, but I don't have full access so can't verify that's what it actually says, but the abstract certainly hints at it. SpinningSpark 01:58, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Larsen C ice volume measured in number of ice cubes (2 cm on a side)

I was reading about the Larsen C ice shelf when I saw the following statement "This corresponds to 2.1875 x 10^20 2cm ice cubes." No citation is given for this figure (original research?), and my calculation shows it to be 1000x too large – article states iceberg would be 350 m thick, 5000 km² area. Could someone check this value?blacksheep (talk) 03:24, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Removed SpinningSpark 13:29, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To confirm I make that 2.2x10^17, and also can't find a source. A proportion as "nine and twelve percent of the ice shelf" is correctly sourced to NASA, but should it be clarified that this is as a proportion of the existing Larsen C? --Cedders^tk 18:17, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Size comparisons of Larsen C

Since in popular media the size of the calving part is very often compared to the size of "one quarter of Wales", and that being a not very descriptive comparison, I was trying to give another size comparison apart from the (already mentioned) not so well known Trinidad and Tobago, and the US-centric Delaware. To give an example that's more significant for both Asians and Europeans, I wanted to extend a sentence and compare it to the size of Bali (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Bali) and twice the size of Luxembourg (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Luxembourg). Sadly, I couldn't find that respective part (the already exisiting sentence with Trinidad and Tobago) in the source code, just a reference I don't understand; maybe somebody else could add this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.113.168.83 (talk) 19:31, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Larsen D

The lead image shows D but there is nothing in the article or at search engines. Does it exist? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:11, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I added something. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:28, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You did? MaynardClark (talk) 00:54, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I did. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:01, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Gif image needs clarification

I moved this image to here, because its description page reads "first image" and "second image" etc, but the gif animation is in fact an endless loop, so before reinsertion it needs an annotation in each image to inform about its specific order in the loop. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:00, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

New article for iceberg

Now that it's hit the news, the calving of the massive new iceberg deserves its own article, like the others on the list of recorded icebergs by area. This article is about the shelf itself, but the story of the growing crack and eventual unleashing of a trillion-ton iceberg is a separate article. It is a notable event as long as we can find reliable sources to reference. I propose Larsen C iceberg or (via redirects) its official name. Tayste (edits) 03:11, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've created Iceberg_A-68. Tayste (edits) 00:16, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Size comparison

"...an area greater than the US state of Delaware, or twice the size of Luxembourg...". Great if you live in Delaware or Luxembourg, but not that helpful for everyone else. Any suggestions for a better method of describing area in a comparative way, or should it just be left out? 31.52.164.115 (talk) 20:23, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

[1]

Excerpt of this article to ice shelf

I am currently working on ice shelf and plan to use several excerpts of the "most important" ice shelves for the section on disruption. So I have transcribed this one now. Which are the other important ice shelves that are disintegrating and for which we have up to date articles? EMsmile (talk) 09:42, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A-17?

Found no evidence of an iceberg having that designation. Skullers (talk) 07:50, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]