[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 44 (Thursday, April 18, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E580]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E580]]
                 ANTARCTIC ICE SHELF COLLAPSES INTO SEA

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                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 18, 2002

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, on March 19, scientists reported the 
collapse of a 12,000 year old ice sheet in Antarctica. A piece of ice 
the size of Rhode Island breaking off of Antarctica is amazing enough 
but the realization that it took only 35 days--a nanosecond in glacial 
time--for the disintegration of something of this magnitude should give 
us pause. Whether or not the collapse is related to global warming, 
this event should be a cautionary lesson to us all. We tend to look 
back on geologic history and see gradual trends but this reflects more 
the averaging of time than the reality of past conditions. Rapid 
climatic changes have occurred in the past; we should expect them in 
the future. We may have just witnessed an event that scientists of the 
future will look back on as the first sign of a rapid warming period of 
the 21st Century. As we contemplate the demise of the Larsen B ice 
sheet, we should also consider our assumptions about our ability to 
adapt to climate change. Gradual warming might allow us to adjust but 
we have no guarantee that Mother Nature will allow us the luxury of 
time.

               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 20, 2002]

                 Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses Into Sea

                            (By Eric Pianin)

       An Antarctic ice shelf the size of Rhode Island recently 
     shattered and collapsed into the sea after an unusual warming 
     period, stunning some scientists who said they had never seen 
     such a large loss of ice mass in the remote Antarctic 
     Peninsula.
       The disintegration of the ice shelf--1,260 square miles in 
     area and 650 feet thick--was most alarming to some because of 
     the extraordinary rapidity of the collapse. The shelf is 
     believed to have existed for as long as 12,000 years before 
     regional temperatures began to rise, yet it disintegrated 
     literally before scientists' eyes over a 35-day period that 
     began Jan. 31.
       ``We knew that it would collapse eventually, but the speed 
     of it is staggering,'' said David Vaughan, a glaciologist 
     with the British Antarctic Survey, which announced the event 
     yesterday in London and released vivid video images of the 
     breakup.
       Researchers and scientists who study the Antarctic 
     Peninsula cautioned that there was little evidence to 
     directly link the ice shelf collapse to the effects of global 
     warming, which is induced by carbon dioxide and other man-
     made ``greenhouse'' gases. Rather, they are blaming a 
     localized warming period that allowed melt water to seep into 
     cracks and trigger massive fracturing of the ice when 
     temperatures dropped.
       ``What we see is climate warming regionally,'' said Ted 
     Scambos, a researcher with the National Snow and Ice Data 
     Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder. ``Ice 
     shelves that have been there for centuries, maybe thousands 
     of years, are responding to climate they haven't seen in the 
     past. Very quickly they shatter.''
       But some scientists, including Princeton University 
     geoscience professor Michael Oppenheimer, believe that more 
     sophisticated and localized global warming models eventually 
     will show a direct relationship between Earth's rising 
     temperatures and the vanishing ice shelves.
       ``Ascribing a temperature trend in a small region like that 
     to the broader global trend is difficult,'' said Oppenheimer, 
     one of the hundreds of scientists who helped research a 
     seminal United Nations-sponsored report on global warming. 
     ``Nevertheless, the collapse of the ice shelf in my opinion 
     can be partially ascribed to human-induced climate change.''
       Experts said the loss of the ice shelf will not result in a 
     rise in sea level because the ice was already floating. One 
     of the most significant predicted results of global warming 
     is a rise in sea level as ice on land melts.
       Ice shelves are thick plates, fed by glaciers, that float 
     in the ocean around much of Antarctica. In recent months, 
     with the polar summer just beginning, temperatures were 
     already creeping above freezing in the peninsula region. 
     Scientists said there has also been a 50-year warming trend 
     in the peninsula, averaging approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius 
     per decade, which is considered a sensitive, early indicator 
     of global climate change.
       But the overall climate picture in the peninsula, nearest 
     to southern Argentina and Chile, is complicated and hard to 
     generalize. Glaciers elsewhere on the continent are both 
     thickening and thinning as temperatures show conflicting 
     climate trends. In January, for example, researcher Peter 
     Doran said scientists working in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of 
     eastern Antarctica have found temperatures dropping since 
     1986.
       The Larsen B ice shelf, as it was called, located on the 
     eastern side of the peninsula, collapsed into a plume of 
     small icebergs and fragments. The amount of ice released in a 
     month's time was enough to fill 29 trillion five-pound bags. 
     The collapse was first detected on satellite images this 
     month by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. A British 
     research vessel, the RRS James Clark Ross, was in the area 
     just as the event was occurring and provided vivid images of 
     the vanishing ice from the ocean's surface.
       It was the largest single event in a series of retreats by 
     ice shelves in the peninsula over the past three decades. 
     ``We're all simply astounded by the uniqueness of the 
     event,'' said Christina Hulbe, a geology professor at 
     Portland State University in Oregon who collaborated on 
     research into Antarctica's breaking ice.
       Some environmental groups seized on the breakup to renew 
     their plea to President Bush to take more aggressive action 
     to reduce emissions that contribute to global warming. Bush 
     has disavowed the Kyoto global warming treaty concluded last 
     November by Japan, European countries and Russia, which would 
     force deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Instead he 
     recently announced proposals to encourage industry to reduce 
     emissions voluntarily.
       ``This stunning development warns of the dangers of 
     governments doing too little to halt global warming,'' said 
     Lara Hansen, a climate scientist for the World Wildlife Fund. 
     ``The visibility and sheer scale of what is happening in 
     Antarctica should provide a wake-up call to policymakers 
     worldwide.''

     

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