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knaq | 5 years ago

If we really wanted to stop it early, we could have. It's about the right size for a nuke.

(and no, an iceberg is NOT anything like a hurricane, which is a heat engine phenomena -- you can definitely shatter an iceberg)

discuss

KineticLensman|5 years ago

> you can definitely shatter an iceberg

Perhaps check out 'Seveneves' by Neal Stephenson for a (fictional) look at why shattering large things isn't always a good idea.

simonh|5 years ago

It covers over 4,000 sq km of ocean and sea floor. To disrupt that you'd need to pepper it with nukes.

So basically instead of letting an ice sheet disrupt the ecosystem across many thousands of square km, you think it would be better to nuke many thousands of square km of ecosystem. Huh.

JoeAltmaier|5 years ago

Is the surface of an iceberg, properly called 'an ecosystem'? A doomed iceberg that is melting? Seems a stretch.

echelon|5 years ago

Nukes shouldn't be used for any reason. Fallout, destruction of animals in the vicinity, inadvertently triggering MAD, etc.

Trump recently asked if nukes could be used for disrupting hurricanes, and the answer was resoundingly no.

(Perhaps space-beamed microwaves, but there's an issue of scale and interaction with the ozone.)