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It looks like something badly CGI'd into a disaster movie, but it's real: an 11 million ton iceberg, slowly moving toward a village, threatening to destroy everything in its path.
Just look at this thing.
A massive section of the iceberg falls off at around 30 seconds in, which gives you a sense of the scale here. If the iceberg becomes destabilised, and a larger chunk is broken off, it could create a tsunami, which could potentially destroy the town of Innaarsuit. This sped up GIF does a good job of illustrating the iceberg's movement.
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Watch This Gigantic, Terrifying Iceberg Slowly Move Toward a Tiny Greenland Village
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 16 2018, @04:06PM (11 children)
Naive, yes, but it's not a bad question. The SIZE of that thing would probably require more than a couple tugs. If you waited until the wind was working with you, and the tide was going in your direction, maybe a half dozen tugs could do it. Maybe. Even with the wind and the water working in your favor, it's a tremendous task. And, that's assuming that it isn't hard aground, with a lot of friction to overcome. In that case, it wouldn't matter much whether it was mired in mud, or rocks, or even a nice smooth sheet of bedrock. There's just too much holding it in place.
But, I think it would be terribly dangerous to even try to put any mooring lines to it. Probably the safest way to do it, is use some helicopters to ferry the lines where they are wanted, drop off a couple crews of men to do the work, then finally, put those lines under strain. You can find the men willing to do it, I'm sure. 40 years ago, I'd have jumped at the chance, all the while singing that goofy song, "I wanna be a recon ranger". More mature guys aren't going to be so willing. The owners of all those tugs and helicopters certainly won't be willing to put their equipment at risk. It would take a good bit of "motivation" to get them to do so.
So, it would be a government effort, motivated by some politician's need to be seen "doing something", or probably not at all.
(Score: 4, Informative) by pvanhoof on Monday July 16 2018, @05:05PM (8 children)
The iceberg is about 11 million tonnes. I don't think there is any ship ever built with more than one million tonnes.
No amount of tug boats is going to move that mass.
* (Nathanael Greene tugs) https://gizmodo.com/the-armys-biggest-tug-boat-can-haul-an-entire-aircraft-1677843677 [gizmodo.com]
* (A few large sea vessels) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_ships_by_gross_tonnage [wikipedia.org]
* (11 million tonnes mentioned here) https://www.cnet.com/news/watch-this-gigantic-terrifying-iceberg-slowly-move-toward-a-tiny-greenland-village/ [cnet.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday July 16 2018, @05:49PM
Is that an oblique dig at Greenlanders who can't count that high [tumblr.com]?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by LVDOVICVS on Monday July 16 2018, @06:09PM (2 children)
A quick search finds the largest ship's gross tonnage to be 403,342. That's for some kind of crane ship. A supertanker is only around 70% of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_ships_by_gross_tonnage [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Disagree) by LVDOVICVS on Monday July 16 2018, @06:12PM (1 child)
So the main point is the iceberg is 2700 times bigger than the biggest ship if I ran my slide rule right.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pvanhoof on Monday July 16 2018, @06:17PM
Plus most of the mass is underwater. I'm not a physicist but I think this means there is much more water to displace while moving the mass through the water.
Kinda like how it's harder for you to walk through a shallow swimming pool (one with water that comes to, let's say, your neck) than it is to walk in open air (admittedly your body's buoyancy is going to lift you up, which also ain't helping you pushing against the pool's floor with your feet).
I'm sure there are actual physicists on this site who can either disprove or acknowledge that
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 16 2018, @06:45PM (3 children)
This is precisely why I said to wait for a time when the wind and the water are working in the direction you want to go. The tug boats will be doing little more than trying to influence the course. Yes, they add a little to the kinetic energy, but their primary purpose is steering. As I mentioned, if the ice is grounded, then no amount of tug boats are going to move it. They have little chance of moving a ship that has run hard aground!
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Monday July 16 2018, @06:57PM (2 children)
I think a better idea would be to deposit massive amounts of sand in front of the iceberg, similar to how they do land reclamation projects*. That might actually divert the iceberg away from the village or might stop it from crashing into the shore of the village.
But anyway. I stick to that this iceberg probably wont do much damage anyway. Let it be. If necessary evacuate the village. When the iceberg problem is gone, repair the village's damages and bring back the local residents. Compensating them and paying for the repairs of the village will be much much cheaper than any conceivable project that would stop 11 millions tonnes of ice mass. I for example don't think many nuclear weapons would displace enough mass to do much to this iceberg. Plus the fallout wouldn't be nice.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_island [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 18 2018, @02:02AM (1 child)
I just saw this video, a time lapse of the berg moving north, and away from the village - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny7A6So9QIk [youtube.com]
Kinda cool. Let the wind and the water do the work!!
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Friday July 20 2018, @01:03PM
Imagine how much needless damage the village would have if we'd send Rambo over with his bow. Or Drones. And all the pollution we'd have of tug boats pointlessly attempting to move 11 million fscking tonnes of ice.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday July 16 2018, @06:08PM
I think it would be terribly dangerous to even try to put any mooring lines to it.
I assumed that a chap in a jetski and a coldwater exposure survival suit would be able to pull a cable around it then use that cable as a leader to pull the full mooring cable. In hindsight it occurs to me that the tow cable would probably be thicker than my leg, and I have no idea what the diameter of the 'berg is.
Objects in image are larger than they appear. :D
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 16 2018, @09:39PM
What it needs is Bruce Willis, and a nuke...
🌻🌻 [google.com]