Huge ice island could pose threat to oil, shipping

[Allhallowsday]

Huge ice island could pose threat to oil, shipping 

STOCKHOLM – An island of ice more than four times the size of Manhattan is drifting across the Arctic Ocean after breaking off from a glacier in Greenland.

Potentially in the path of this unstoppable giant are oil platforms and shipping lanes — and any collision could do untold damage. In a worst case scenario, large chunks could reach the heavily trafficked waters where another Greenland iceberg sank the Titanic in 1912.

It's been a summer of near biblical climatic havoc across the planet, with wildfires, heat and smog in Russia and killer floods in Asia. But the moment the Petermann glacier cracked last week — creating the biggest Arctic ice island in half a century — may symbolize a warming world like no other.

"It's so big that you can't prevent it from drifting. You can't stop it," said Jon-Ove Methlie Hagen, a glaciologist at the University of Oslo... 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100810/ap_on_sc/eu_ice_island

[JaseSF]

  Scary stuff.

[3mnkids]

Hmm, where will this thread go? Climate change or the end is near just like the movie 2012?      Some of the comments at yahoo are frightening.

[Jack]

I made it as far as them blaming wildfires on global warming.   

[Raffine]

      Some of the comments at yahoo are frightening.

"Need lots of Scotch!"