Whatever.

Avagoodeaster yourself.

Pericles

I am an avid questioner myself, however I do try to remain on topic (not always successful) and do try not to let myself be distracted with clever semantics and verbal sleight of hand.

As for topic, noticed the Wilkins Ice Shelf lately? Well you won't for much longer.

Avagoodeaster

Too right, Fractelle. While it is unfortunate to see people sucked in by the often repeated conspiracy theory of a water divining crank, discussions like this are a diversion from the mounting evidence for AGW.

Wilkins ice shelf, Fractelle?

>>noticed the Wilkins Ice Shelf lately? Well you won't for much longer.<<

http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090407-Ice-shelf-hype-detracts-from-the-real-issue-government-inaction.html

"The natural cycle of an ice shelf is to thicken, broaden and fan outwards, until the stresses of thermal erosion by the sea below, the atmosphere above, the subtle but persistent buckling moment of tidal rising and falling, all combine to fracture and break it into thousands of ice bergs, with the largest known to persist for five or more years while drifting for thousands of kilometres.

Somewhere in the southern ocean, the bodies of Robert Falcon Scott and his men rest on such a fragment of the Ross Ice Shelf, awaiting the sea burial which was always their lot after dying there in March 1912 on their return from the South Pole, when their last camp was well away from its outermost edge."

So there is evidence that the calving of a chunk of the shelf into the ocean can have a number of causes, at least one of which is that it happens all the time.

>>noticed the Wilkins Ice Shelf lately? Well you won't for much longer.<<

Ah, but you will. You will be able to see the Wilkins Ice Shelf, for centuries to come. Bits of it will continue to break off, too, as the shelf is "pushed" into the ocean by continuous glacial flows.

You avagoodeaster too, Fractelle. And remember, chocolate is by far and away the most important of the food groups. Respect.

"You will be able to see the Wilkins Ice Shelf, for centuries to come."

The Wilkins Ice Shelf might be thousands of years old. It has decreased in size from about 17,000 square kilometres in the early 1990s to about 10,000 square kilometres currently. Calving of icebergs is commonplace, but the disintegration of ice shelves is not. Hence the interest in sudden sea level rise.

Exactly Fester.

Pericles, as I stated the Wilkins Ice Shelf will be no more, it will simply be a bloody huge iceberg.

Suggest chocolate is good for Pericles too.

Respect back atcha.