Stop worrying, even if you weren't worrying to begin with!

Well, some people worry, and they worry over the strangest things.  For example, the 'fact' that the Fimbul Ice Shelf is melting has given some people the screaming abdabs!  If you doubt me you should listen outside the high walls which surround the Deltoid HAF (Hot Air Fanatic) site where-in the hysteria is reaching fever pitch.  And, no, I've never heard of the Fimbul Ice Shelf, either, until just now but I am fairly confident that even if I had, I still would not have tossed and turned in bed.

And nor should you because the 'fact' that it is melting is yet another fairy story dreamt up by the HAFs to frighten the children - that's you, in case you're wondering.  This particular ice shelf is down in Antarctica and you will not drop dead from shock when I tell you that the 'fact' that it was melting was not established by means of actually looking and measuring but by that good old stand-by, beloved in HAF circles, the computer model.  And you all know the old saying about computers, brown stuff in, diarrhea out!  Happily some Norwegian scientists actually went and looked, although it beats me why, as a Norwegian living in a frozen wasteland, you would choose to investigate Antarctica when you could, say, check out the Malvinas - but I digress.

According to The Register and the American Geophysical Union these 'Norskies' actually used:

12 tons of hot-water drilling equipment, bored three holes more than 200m deep through the Fimbul Shelf, which spans an area roughly twice the size of New Jersey. The location of each hole was cunningly chosen so that the various pathways by which water moves beneath the ice shelf could be observed, and instruments were lowered down.

Not satisfied with that, those clever 'Norskies' then rode piggy-back, so to speak, on some giant seals in order to look from the bottom up, as it were:

The boffins also supplemented their data craftily by harvesting info from a biology project, the Marine Mammal Exploration of the Oceans Pole to Pole (MEOP) effort, which had seen sensor packages attached to elephant seals. [...]

Normally, getting sea temperature readings along the shelf in winter would be dangerous if not impossible due to shifting pack ice - but the seals were perfectly at home among the grinding floes.

Anyway, the result of all these efforts was:

Overall, according to the team, their field data shows "steady state mass balance" on the eastern Antarctic coasts - ie, that no ice is being lost from the massive shelves there. The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Pheeeew, that's a relief!  You see now how valuable this blog is to you all, saving you from worries you never had - that's what I call real service!  (There is no direct charge for this service but the usual - and generous - contributions in the usual plain, brown envelope will be gratefully received.)

 

Comments

[JK]

"Stop worrying, even if you weren't worrying to begin with!"

Catchy title David. Tell me, much rain been falling in your neck of the UK's woods. 'Nuff to make grass need mowing?

http://news.yahoo.com/gas-under-graveyards-raises-moral-money-questions-172126153.html

[David Duff]

They better not try digging for oil in my Church graveyard, er, not unless they put me in for some shares!