Submitted via IRC for Bytram
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: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 16 2018, @12:42PM (2 children)
Tremendous video. Because if you listen, you can hear me! Talking about the problems we're having with NATO, with all the other countries not paying enough. Right now, America is the only country in NATO that's paying enough. The 4% of GDP for military. And maybe that's something President Putin can help us with. Where possibly we bring in Russia. We'll see. But, they had me on the news in Iceland! That's incredible -- and a great honor. And we're going to be seeing that more and more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @02:00PM
Planning to use your red button on that iceberg?
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 16 2018, @08:10PM
They call it Greenland, they should call it Iceland. Because that's a lot of ice. A hell of a lot of ice. Perhaps they could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against!!!!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday July 16 2018, @02:04PM
If you watch the lower right third of the screen after the ice calves off you can see the shockwave; the town has about 30 seconds warning before it hits.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday July 16 2018, @02:23PM (17 children)
Is it possible to tow it away from the town with tugs? I get that it's a big icecube, but it's floating.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @02:34PM (13 children)
Most of an iceberg is below the surface of the water, so there's a lot more to tow than meets the eye.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 16 2018, @03:47PM (12 children)
Sure, it's 10x bigger than it looks - that doesn't fundamentally change the question. If it's free floating, and you're not fighting against a current, a couple of tugboats (or even one guy using it as a giant kickboard) should be able to move it. Slowly, but inexorably.
Whether you could do so in a cost-effective manner, especially without breaking it in the process and precipitating the disaster they're hoping to avoid, is a completely different question. But if the only real alternative is "completely abandon a town", the budget for "cost effective" could be quite large.
Of course there's always the alternative of "ignore it and hope it goes away", which may be completely unrealistic, but is quite cheap and thus an extremely popular choice even in the face of much larger impending disasters.
(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]
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Monday July 16 2018, @02:51PM
No no. We need a Elon Musk submarine device to rescue all the villagers in a tube going straight through the iceberg. And a Twitter account. Sorry tow boy, you really did ask for it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 16 2018, @04:07PM
I meant to post in reply to your question - but managed to reply to Immerman instead. Please scroll down. :^)
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Tuesday July 17 2018, @09:28AM
Inform the Government of Dubai. Maybe they can tow it away.
UAE to tow icebergs from Antarctica for new project [khaleejtimes.com]
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @02:42PM (20 children)
As long as the pieces falling off the iceberg aren't too large, the town is OK. So get some military drones (or attack helicopters, but they are more expensive) up there and have them shoot off little bits at a time, make it rounder, take off the stress of overhanging areas that could split off a big chunk.
Re towing it away, I read somewhere else that it's stuck on a shoal? Maybe it could be moved at high tide?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pvanhoof on Monday July 16 2018, @02:57PM (15 children)
You guys watch too much US-army sponsored Hollywood movies. It used to be that we'd send Rambo over to shoot exploding projectiles to the the iceberg with his compound bow. But in 2018 we send drones.
How about:
* evacuate the village;
* let the iceberg melt and/or float away all by itself;
* then bring the villagers back to their homes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @03:14PM (14 children)
Because then the village might be destroyed.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Monday July 16 2018, @03:23PM (13 children)
I'm pretty sure repairs to the damaged village is going to be less expensive than just one AGM-114 Hellfire. Plus breaking off large chunks of ice ain't going to do good for the village's infrastructure, either. Plus you need to bring a bunch of equipment in the proximity of that village in Greenland to start doing drone flights like that. Politically sensitive, plus, expensive, plus, you need that equipment in actual current war zones (the US is involved in plenty already, no need to add Greenland to that list).
You could also just rig the iceberg with conventional explosives.
Or you could just wait and see. It's quite unlikely that the village will get much irrepairable damage anyway.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday July 16 2018, @04:07PM (2 children)
The Russian military use artillery pieces to precipitate avalanches for similar purposes.
Might as well do something useful during training excercises.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Monday July 16 2018, @05:24PM (1 child)
I like the idea of cheap artillery pieces more than sending over expensive drones shooting even more expensive Hellfires. However. How about simply rigging the mountain with conventional explosives?
Or how about not doing anything until there is an actual problem and only if there ever will be an actual problem?
Admittedly the 33 people who have left the village together with the 169 who so far have stayed, will enjoy the fireworks show of the artillery command doing the shelling from the top of that mountain at the other side of the point where the camera was set up of that video made by this local resident. I'm sure the homeowners there can organize a nice barbeque with a nice after party inviting the soldiers for some sangria later in the evening.
Maybe they should bring some tents, in case it's cloudy that day and it starts raining.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday July 17 2018, @09:15AM
I think they use conventional explosives to clear mountains above some of the Canadian highways. But I take your point that doing nothing is a sensible option.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 16 2018, @04:10PM (9 children)
Oh, I dunno. We've had a war on poverty, war on crime, war on poverty, war on cannabis, war against stupidity. Maybe we need a good War on Ice. Maybe we could win that one.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Monday July 16 2018, @04:21PM
and then a war on booze to go with the ice.... i think you're onto something here, Runaway! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Monday July 16 2018, @05:16PM (3 children)
You'll win the War on Ice before you'll win the War on Stupidity. That's exactly right. But .. concerning this war on Stupidity. Did you manage to kill or convince any of the enemies?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @05:34PM
I suggest we combine this new war on Ice with the ongoing war on Stupidity. It's easy, offer this iceberg as target practice for NRA members. A quick look suggests that Greenland won't have to change their gun laws to any great extent,
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/greenland [gunpolicy.org]
That low population country already has plenty of guns--
> Small Arms Imports (US$) - Customs
> The annual value of small arms and ammunition imports to Greenland is reported by Customs to be US$1,044,858 (2011)
(Score: 4, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Monday July 16 2018, @05:44PM (1 child)
The War on Stupidity was over a long time ago. Stupidity won.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Monday July 16 2018, @05:49PM
Yes, but did any of the enemy combatants either get convinced to cease being stupid or got killed? It even looks like they took over government in the US. Didn't NOFX have a song about that? The Idiots are taking over or something. Yes, The War on Errorism was the album called.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 16 2018, @05:18PM (1 child)
Maybe we need a good War on Ice. Maybe we could win that one.
Pretty sure we're already winning that one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @05:27PM
>> Maybe we need a good War on Ice. Maybe we could win that one.
> Pretty sure we're already winning that one.
Yes we are. But you have the wrong time scale to save the threatened village...
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday July 16 2018, @06:21PM (1 child)
Don't forget the Emu War. Humanity lost that one.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday July 16 2018, @11:32PM
Did you mean the Emu War, which humans won, or the Emo War, which everyone lost?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Monday July 16 2018, @03:36PM
I'm not an expert on military things, but I'm guesstimating that the Kalaallissuut(sp?) Navy has the military budget for a brand new rowboat.
To replace the current one.
Maybe they could hire a helicopter to rescue the villagers? Even though it's high summer it's probably not so nice to sleep outside and wait until the berg goes away from the village.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday July 16 2018, @03:57PM
Also, if you look at the video the ridge between the town and the iceberg would form an effective breakwater to the resultant wave. The three houses on that ridge would be screwed, but the rest of the town would probably survive.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @04:00PM
Move the village onto the iceberg.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 16 2018, @09:41PM
The whole concept of glacier kind of precludes the concept of stuck. It might slow down for a while, but it will keep moving.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by isj on Monday July 16 2018, @02:51PM (1 child)
The iceberg drifted a bit away from Innaarsuit few days ago after hitting ground, so the local grocery store has been allowed to open for one hour a day. And only adults capable of walking (running) should go there to buy stuff. Interestingly relaxed approach to possible doom, but I suppose that you can assume people there are used to dealing with nature not being friendly.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday July 16 2018, @03:58PM
You're probably right. They're probably accustomed to icebergs the way Kansans are to tornadoes and San Franciscans are to earthquakes.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday July 16 2018, @04:18PM (4 children)
say that three times fast.
Hell, say it one time fast.....or slow....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 16 2018, @04:44PM
Nice trap, but I don't want a raid of TLA agents ...
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Monday July 16 2018, @05:52PM
Only sound I can produce goes like Eyjafjallajökull. That's practice from last time we got told to try pronouncing something. This thing wont stop planes, though.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @08:01PM
Em..
A mutilated giantess [wikipedia.org] just emerged from the deep sea, next to my kayak!
What do I have to say next? Please respond asap as she's trying to sink me...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 16 2018, @09:43PM
Innaarsunni iluliarsuaq
Innaarsunni iluliarsuaq
Innaarsunni iluliarsuaq
Just rolls right off the tongue, er, thumb...
🌻🌻 [google.com]