Globaloney and Glaciers

We are "reliably" informed that the new glacier which just left its mommy, the South Pole, is a signal of TEOTWAWKI.  The End of the World As We Know It.

The seas will rise, perhaps covering Los Angeles, New York, and D.C.  (Stop sniggling and hoping!  THIS IS SERIOUS!!)

Or not.

As it turns out, this is not the first really big chunk of ice to depart the South Pole.

...The new Larsen berg is probably in the top 10 biggest ever recorded. 

The largest observed in the satellite era was an object called B-15. It came away from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000 and measured some 11,000 sq km. Six years later, fragments of this super-berg still persisted and passed by New Zealand. 

In 1956, it was reported that a US Navy icebreaker had encountered an object of roughly 32,000 sq km. That is bigger than Belgium. Unfortunately, there were no satellites at the time to follow up and verify the observation. 

It has been known also for the Larsen C Ice Shelf itself to spawn bigger bergs. An object measuring some 9,000 sq km came away in 1986. Many of Larsen's progeny can get wound up in a gyre in the Weddell sea or can be despatched north on currents into the Southern Ocean, and even into the South Atlantic....

1956??  NINETEEN FIFTY-SIX??

That was during Global Cooling.  Or was it 1986 that was Cooling?  We know that 2000 was Warming.  And of course, this year is Doing Nothing For the Time Being.

Maybe the Hockey Stick guy will straighten this all out.