But as one guy pointed out in one of the sites I review, (I paraphrase, from memory) “You can’t continually add heat to a complex non-linear system without eventually generating a bad outcome.”

My own intuition tells me that eventually the global heat engine will undergo a phase change, and then quickly stabilize at a new level. But more and more I’m hearing from people who know a lot more about this than I do that sooner or later some inflection point will be crossed and a runaway excursion event will be initiated.

Fortunately, by then we’ll have a dictator in the White House who will instantly grasp the situation and immediately apply the right corrective action.

It will not really make a difference sea-level rise-wise. But here’s the thing…add a bunch of saline-free water to the ocean, and it sits on top of the denser saline rich water, and since it has a higher freezing point, it turns into sea ice. So, at least in the Antarctic, which is somewhat atmospherically isolated from the rest of the southern hemisphere, we might expect sea ice in the Antarctic to actually increase as the ice cap gently melts.

He did mention that if the shelf breaks loose and floats away, it will allow the glacier to flow “quickly” into the sea, and a great deal of ice may be dumped into the sea in a relatively short time where it could melt and contribute to sea level rise. This ice loss would occur much faster than without the calving, but it isn’t really accurate to say it was caused by global warming.

In the event that occurs, AGW effects would occur, but he made it a point to stress that the calving itself is NOT caused by the ice melting rapidly due to global warming. Its also why I didn’t bring it up when I heard about it. For example, I’ve noticed when a group of several climate authorities make predictions about the state of the climate or weather, it is always the most extreme one that is gleefully quoted and debunked later by the denialists. The more cautious and reasonable ones are deliberately ignored, especially if they turn out to be right on target.

I felt the need to bring this up because denialists comb meticulously through press releases like this in order to “prove” how the media sensationalizes these events and deliberately misinterprets them for their own nefarious reasons. They are desperate to discredit all reporting on AGW issues and deflect public concern, and they have gotten quite clever at it. You have to be super-conservative and ultra careful when reporting on these issues, because as you know, the rules of evidence are much more strict on real facts than they are with alternate ones.

The crack in Larsen C now reaches over 100 miles in length, and some parts of it are as wide as two miles. The tip of the rift is currently only about 20 miles from reaching the other end of the ice shelf.

Once the crack reaches all the way across the ice shelf, the break will create one of the largest icebergs ever recorded, according to Project Midas, a research team that has been monitoring the rift since 2014. Because of the amount of stress the crack is placing on the remaining 20 miles of the shelf, the team expects the break soon.

From The New York Times:

A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf
Grew 17 Miles in the Last Two Months

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2017/02/S_daily_extent_hires-350×417.png

Ice Nazi says “No Antarctic counterbalance for U!”