Tuesday, March 02, 2010

On Water and its Many Uses

A new piece of ice has detached itself from Antarctica - not the one on the right, but the one on the left. They are both a decent size, around the same as, apparently, Luxembourg - for those of you who can instantly picture such an expanse. Big, anyway. One should also remember, while contemplating a gin and tonic, that ice mostly floats below the surface, so there is a lot more under the water than above.
The other point to make is that they are both floating gamely north and, while they probably won't get through the Straits of Gibraltar, whether from size, inclination or melted remains, they will certainly help to raise the sea level by a bit.
Perhaps not enough to bring my property onto the 'front-line', but, together with the wettest winter on record, well - since I've been here at least - our small 'Corner of Enchantment' is getting decidedly soggy.
Mojácar is a beautiful and dramatic looking town, mostly built on hilltops and cliff-edges. The houses must have flat roofs for some obscure reason. This all means that they leak and, in many cases, will take off majestically down the hill when the earth or rock gives way after a good rainstorm.
We are now all currently clustering around the foot of the sierras, within spitting distance of the sea and waiting for a surprisingly belated power-cut, so a rise in the sea level could start to become a problem.
Forecast tomorrow: More rain.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"...they will certainly help to raise the sea level by a bit."

WRONG! By melting, they will not help to raise the sea-level one iota because they are already floating. If a lump of ice fell off the Antarctic land-mass directly into the water then that would be a different thing. It's all to do with physics.

Reality

Incidentally, one of the great canards of the man-made global warming scam is that the Arctic will melt and raise the sea level by scores of metres. Impossible - the Arctic is one giant iceberg.

Lenox said...

Well, you are no doubt right, but this is just for amusement.
For hard science - you'll have to go to my hard science blog.