June 19, 2012 • 38 mins
" Icebergs: floating chunks of ice. True, but whoa there. Scientists are learning that there's a lot more to icebergs. Appropriately enough, we've only come to understand the tip of the iceberg and recent research shows there's plenty more to uncover.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know?
From House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant
and that makes this stuff you should know? How's it
(00:22):
killing everybody? It's a joy stage, Josh, so oh, I
don't know, it's just it's been a joy. Stay. Don't
you think? I'm very glad you think it's been a
joyous day. What do you think? You haven't had a computer,
so you don't care. I know my laptop has been
apparently too full of data to operate whatever that means. Yeah,
he's stuffed it up with fifty gigs of shady stuff.
(00:44):
It's right. Yeah, it's called research, I guess. So every
single bit of that it was hard facts buddy. Yeah.
And songs? Yeah? Videos is that? Well? There you go.
Videos tend to stop stuff up by especially high res ones. Yeah,
that's probably what it was. I would imagine. So on
(01:05):
your work computer, no less, Well, what am I going
to do? Cary? Answer? Computers? Why where are we talking
about this? I don't know you started it let's hear
the intro. Chuck, Yes, I'm quite sure that. Um, you'll
think I'm kind of stupid for mentioning probably the most
famous ship ever to be sunk by an iceberg, but
(01:26):
humor me. Of course. We all know the wreck of
the William Carson, which in seven went down off the
coast of Labrador. Uh. It had a number of cars
on board, but more importantly, a hundred and nine souls, right,
which is what they call you when you're to see. Yeah,
(01:46):
like a hundred and nine souls lost. I never really
hope heard that or paid attention. Really, I thought they
would say lives lost. They say souls. They say souls.
Are they used to old time, you wise, before Kennedy
in the separation of Church and date. I guess right, yeah,
I guess now they call them lives before they were
souls all souls lost. That's sad. Yeah, it makes it
(02:07):
even sader. It's like the saint crying right under certain circumstances. Um.
But the luckily a hundred and nine souls were not lost.
Zero souls were lost on the William Carson, as everybody knows.
The cars went down, though, which is a tragedy for
the insurance companies covering those cars. But as I said,
(02:27):
like every school child knows the story of the William Carson.
Did you know that there were other ships that have
hit icebergs? I was not aware of any. It's true.
The Lady of the Lake Okay, yeah, I didn't know
about that one went down in the Grand Banks. Didn't
make a movie about that. Uh no, no, you're thinking
of ex caliber Um. The Lady of the Lake went
down the Grand Banks on its way to Quebec with
(02:50):
seventy people on board, seventy souls. Um the s s
hush SHD toft hush and toft okay yeah, um off
the coast of Greenland in nineteen fifty nine on her
maiden voyage. Can you believe this? That makes it so
much worse that it's a maiden voyage. People dead all
because of icebergs. I mean, there's been other ships that
(03:12):
have hit icebergs, but um, all because a chunk of
floating ice took out an entire ship. Souls and souls
and souls were lost. Yeah. You know, we have a
young fan named Shelley Stein right now that is about
to throw her iPod through a window. Is that the
person who always wants to hear about that that other ships, thinking, yeah,
(03:32):
she's been begging for like two years leading into the anniversary.
That's right. Um. Anyway, what's crazy is that all of
these ships were lost. As a matter of fact, between
eighteen eighty two and eighteen passenger liners went down in
a place called Iceberg Galley. But it was only the
last twenty five years that we started tracking icebergs. What's
(03:54):
even more amazing, though, is that we have learned a
tremendous amount in those twenty five years, and we're still
learning and we will dispense with the learning forth with.
That's right. This is interesting. Was this a grabster? Yeah? Boy,
he puts together a nice article, then he he does.
He knows what he's doing. He's a professional. I never
feel uh, I never feel bad about about his. But
(04:17):
you feel bad about some of them. Yeah, like the
ones I write, like the ones you write. They're very adventurous.
They were for the Adventure Channel right at one point.
So chuck, um. I think people they're sitting there sitting
at home thinking right now, like they're talking about icebergs
and it's just a chunk of floating ice and You're
absolutely right. It is just a chunk of floating as
(04:39):
not just a chunk. There's so much more to us um.
For example, iceberg salt water, Nope, fresh water yep. Why well, Uh,
I learned virtually everything I've ever known about icebergs within
the past forty same here, by the way, Uh, it
is ice um, but it's not sea ice or pack ice.
(05:01):
Like when you see deadly sketching there motoring through that
that sea ice. Those those aren't little chunks of iceberg.
That's saltwater, right, that's frozen seawater. Frozen seawater and iceberg
was um is a piece of a glacier that has
busted off or calved, calved, calved like having a calf,
(05:23):
like giving birth to a cat is calving, calving, calving, calving. Yeah, man,
I had it until you threw me off. Well saying
cal I thought it would be calving, calving, caving away
from a glacier. How many times we just say calving
and a glacier. Uh, Let's talk about glaciers for a second.
Glaciers are packed snow basically. Well, yeah, but I mean
(05:47):
they're a little more interesting than that. Well, yeah, that's
the that's the base route. Though in certain latitudes, um,
it never gets warm enough for snow to fully melt
all the way in the summertime. So what you have
an accumulation of that snow that builds up over and
over and over again over the centuries, over the eons,
as old as ten thousand years old, sometimes right. Uh,
(06:08):
And that's a glacier. But glaciers are also additionally interesting
in that um, they become so heavy that they over
this freezing thaw cycle and um the accumulation of layers
that they all of the air bubbles are pressed out
of them. So glaciers are blue, the color of frozen
(06:29):
water with no air in it. Um. And they also
move under the force of their own weight. They moved downward,
downhill towards sea level, because sea levels as downhill as
it gets right until you hit the sea, that's right.
And um, So because of this, they they are this
ultra dense form of ice. So it slips down, floats
(06:53):
out into the sea. Tidal motions eventually will cause little
cracks and fissures, and then a piece of the glacier
will break off and boom there that's an iceberg. It's
a freshwater piece of the glacier freshwater glacier chunks, right,
And it's freshwater because it's made of snow, not seawater. Um.
And when you said that it floats out into the sea.
(07:15):
That's called an ice shelf. Um. And up north and
northern latitudes, Um, the biggest ice shelves are found on
the western coast of Greenland. Was there Arctic or northern
icebergs that are formed up there off of those glaciers
down south in Antarctica where there are penguins. But it's
not the only place there's penguins. I want to make
(07:35):
sure everybody knows. I know. And no polar bears. No,
only a pool would say that. Yes. Um, the pretty
much the continent of Antarctica is ringed with ice shelves
and there's a lot of open sea, so the icebergs
can get really big. They can keep extending, extending, extending,
But then like you said, yeah, they break off and
then you have an iceberg. Don't talk about ice. Yeah,
(07:58):
this is fascinating. Like I want over this again and
again and again until I finally got it, and I
feel like I got it. It's so easy though I
was making a lot of pot of it. Yeah. Uh, ice,
as we all know, is the solid phase of water
you have you know, liquid solid gas. Iis a solid
phase thirty two degrees fahrenheit for fresh water zero celsius.
(08:21):
Salt water is gonna need to be a little bit
colder because, um, there are basically salt molecules getting in
the way of the ice forming. Well. They they they
move faster I believe than water molecules, and it takes
a lower temperature to slow them down. And also it's
greater density if you're talking saltwater, right, which is important,
(08:42):
very important. But ice also is the is peculiar meaning unique,
and that it's the only solid phase of any substance.
I believe that is less dense than the liquid phase.
So ice is less sense the water, and then seawater
is denser than fresh water. So well, and it's easy
(09:06):
to remember the ice is less dense because when you
put a little ice cube in your little chardonnay this summer,
if you're a red neck, it'll float. Yeah, because there's
little uh, ice forms in a crystalline shape, so those
that leaves area for gaps, I guess, And so what
is the air in there? Uh? I'm sure there's just
(09:27):
less dense. It's just the it's just it's less dense. Basically,
if you take water and freeze it, you can think
of it as spreading out, so it gets bigger, has
it has a larger volume, but it'll weigh the same
as that lesser amount of water, right, And when you
put something, say ice, in water, it's buoyant in that
(09:47):
the amount of water displaces has to equal the weight
of the ice that's displacing it. But since there's more
ice than an equal weight of water, there's some leftover
that floats. And that is what we call the tip
of the iceberg. And when do you get confused, Yes,
the tip of the iceberg. That is the part that
(10:08):
sticks out, and it's about, depending on the iceberg, about
one six to one ninth. And I'm sure everyone's seen
those awesome pictures on the interwebs of you know, the
top of the water and under the water of the iceberg.
It's pretty cool, right, you've seen those. I have very
nice And the reason there's very variation between how much
(10:29):
iceberg is showing it is because of the variation in
the concentration of salt in seawaters or any particular part
of seawater. And and um. Also uh, some icebergs are
denser than others as more as he said, just like people. Yeah, exactly.
Uh that you mentioned earlier that glacial ice is blue. Um.
(10:49):
That is true. Um. During different melting and freezing cycles, though,
they will turn white because the air gets trapped in there. Um.
And then sometimes these really old icebergs that have formed
at the bottom of these thick Antarctic ice shelves like
that have been around for thousands of years might actually
have a greenish hue because it's just you know, soaked
(11:12):
up organic matter under there over the years, right and
then so which is kind of a dirty yellow brown.
But icebergs have the tendency to roll over without warning,
which is one reason why you wouldn't want to camp
on an iceberg. No, they're dangerous to be around. They are.
And actually there was one that floated down to New
Zealand and some helicopter charters were like selling flights to
(11:36):
go check them out, and one of them landed on
the iceberg and they realized prett quickly they shouldn't do
that anymore. Um. But did they like getting short did it? No?
They made it out okay, But when they got back
and told people, I'm sure some scientists like, wait, what
did you just do? Right? Don't ever do that again?
Tc um, but the iceberg will roll over. And so
you've got the green part up that's with the light
(12:00):
reflecting up through the blue park when you get this
brilliant emerald green. And that's some old ice right there, Bubby, Bobby, Yes, Bobby,
I've never said that before. Uh. The life cycle of
an iceberg is pretty interesting too. Why we mentioned they
can be as old as ten thousand years before they
ever reached the ocean, and um, this is like centuries
(12:22):
of compression. So that's why it's so so dense, that's
why it's blue. And then once it calves off though
and and from the glacier, you've got about three to
six years on average, right if it's like say, it's
up in the in iceberg galley and never strays below parallel,
which is apparently where the water starts to get a
lot warmer. Four Parallel goes for Americans through like the
(12:45):
tip of Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula Michigan. People below
that are like, it's still pretty cold. I imagine, um,
so ones that stay up there and never come back down,
can float around for like fifty years and just kind
of alt the way slowly and quietly. Right. Ones that
make it further south, like one made it to Bermuda once,
which I'm sure was quite a surprise. Um. Those go
(13:08):
away fairly quickly. Uh yeah, and I enjoyed this. Um.
One account of this expedition. Um. What's the guy's name?
Dr Gregory Stone witnessed and wrote about in his book
Ice Island um, which I believed the largest ones are
called ice island sometimes. Yeah. Right. Um. His quote is
in this iceberg basically became destabilized, and it sounds like
(13:31):
it exploded, like right in front of his face. Yeah.
Well he said that there was an ice debris field
across two miles. Yeah, and he said it was like
shards of crystal shattering. Right. But if you think about it,
that's what happens when you put in ice cuban water. Yeah.
You hear that noise, right, It's called thermal shock. Yeah,
it's pretty cool. And it's also because ice is less
(13:51):
dense than water. As it's liquefying, it shrinks because think
about it's contracting and it's pulling apart the outer warm
or layer from the inner colder layer, and this cracks
form and the ice cube essentially explodes. It sounds like
that's the same thing that happened. Yes, when you pour
that that twelve year old scotch on top of your
single cube of ice. If you're into that, I don't
(14:13):
know if you should be doing that. But okay, I'm
not a neat guy. I like my I like it
a little cold, and and I'm not so hardcore with
the single malts, so too remove that bite just a
bit is good for me. You don't so you don't
like take it neat through your nose as that the
way to do it. Yeah, the way you drink it
with ice through your mouth. Yeah, I know, scotch pure
(14:37):
scoff at me, but scalp away or whatever. Just do
what you like exactly. Um, that it was very supportive.
I meant you as like people in general. Okay, so
that wasn't supportive. Um, let's talk about some factoids and
this this is to me. The fact of the show
is that there are actually six official classifications with their size,
(14:59):
and the first two it sounds like they were having
a lot to drink when they had the naming party
and sobered up a bit, because the smallest one's about
the size of a car, maybe a little smaller, called growlers,
and then the next one, maybe about the size of
your house, is called a burgie bit. I put the
emphases on a bit like a burgie bit, a burgie bit.
(15:21):
Either way, it's pretty cute. It is very cute. And
then they got I guess sobered up or got bored
or ran out of whiskey, and then they said, all right,
then the next ones are small, medium, large, and very large,
which is really boring compared to burgie bit. It is,
but the very large ones are kind of interesting in
that they just keep going and going. The largest one
ever record is the B fifteen iceberg. Yeah, broke off
(15:44):
of the Ross ice shelf down in Antarctica. Apparently it
was about the size of Jamaica. Yeah. I think it's
it's broken apart into smaller piece of sense, but I
think the original um area was about sixty square miles.
That's all. That's a big chunk of ice. Yeah, And
in order to be I mean, that's the upper limit,
(16:05):
like it can just be as big as they're gonna get.
There's no like cap or anything like that. To call
it super extra large. Um, but very large. You have
to be about twenty four stories tall and a little
longer than two football field six to be classified is
very large. Yeah, that's that's big man. If you think
(16:26):
about that, Yeah, it's huge. UM. I'm sorry, it's very
large or it's huge huge. Um. The other two classifications
that icebergs can fall in are equally boring as the
last four size names. They really could have done better
than this if you ask me, But they're the t
shape classifications are tabular and non tabular. And tabular is
basically just like a well, it looks like a table,
(16:49):
like a or a tab tablet, writing tablet, and it's back.
It's like tall with steep sides and a flat tops
like a floating plateau. Um. And those tend to come
off of the ice sheets down in the act Antarctic.
I believe, Yeah those are um. I think they have
to have a with five times greater than their height
to be tabular. And then non tabular have I think
(17:13):
five different classifications. You got blocky flat top steep signs.
They sound like characters they do wedged um flat with
a steep surface on one side and a gradual slope
on another. So it's like the high right haircut. Yeah,
the gumby the gumby the dome which is round and
smooth pinnacle, which means it has at least one big
(17:35):
tall spiral sticking up, and then the ones that um
deteriorate to where they form a big canyon. And it
looks like two different icebergs, but it's really connected. Underneath
those are dry docks, so that means they have two
tips sticking out, but they're connected underwater. It's like mind blowing.
It's pretty much. It was. It's pretty neat at the
(17:58):
very least. So, um, we've got northern icebergs, southern icebergs, um,
and there's plenty of icebergs like elsewhere, but for the
most part, in northern icebergs, like we said, form off
the western coast of Greenland, because Greenland, apparently I read this,
Greenland and Antarctica are the only place where, um, there's
(18:21):
ice sheets, glaciel glacial true glacial sheets, glacial sheets. Boy,
that's a tough one, that was. It surprised me too.
I wasn't expecting that. Uh. And in Greenland there's about
twenty glaciers that cap the majority of the icebergs. Yeah,
that was I thought pretty cool. I thought it was
cool too. Um. Roughly forty thousand medium too large h
(18:46):
calv from Greenland glaciers each year, is that right? And
they are about ten percent as strong as concrete, which
I thought sounded not super strong, but apparently that's like
way harder than like freeze our ice. Oh yeah, like
this ice is different than the ice you put in
your scotch, right, which is why when icebergs run into
(19:07):
one another, it tends to break it up into smaller icebergs.
They're very much subject to um wave motion uh storms,
other icebergs land When they run into things, like they
break up, and it's one of the things that has
a big deletrious effect on their lifespan. But it's part
of the it's part of the iceberg life cycle. Going
(19:29):
with the okay, good, Um, they are pretty slow but um,
to give you an idea, like a fast moving iceberg
goes about two point two miles per hour and that's
Hauland oh, I'm glad you bring this up because that
raises a very important point because we see the tip
of the iceberg and because we're so um anthropocentric, Um,
(19:53):
we assume that wind drives icebergs, you would be dead wrong.
And assuming that since most of the iceberg is underwater,
it's currents that drive icebergs, makes sense. Yeah, um. And
so that's how icebergs can be trapped, like in the Antarctic,
because they're trapped in that current or up north in
the Labrador Current, they kind of stay trapped up there. Um.
(20:14):
But it also makes them subject to wave motion currents
from other far far off storms. And I guess getting
hung up on things underwater, yes as well. It's another
good point is um, they apparently strike the bottom of
land a lot. Yeah, and they can like wreck the seafloor,
can't they. But if you think about it, like there's
(20:35):
plenty of parts of North America where glacial movement carved
geological features are of the land. The icebergs do the
same thing when they're dragged along by the current. And
say one's a thousand feet tall underwater and it hits
a patch of sea that's less than a thousand feet
(20:55):
it's gonna strike New York City and fast go to
Central Park and look at the there. Oh yeah, yeah,
they got all those little grooves cut out, that's ice.
That's ice ice baby. Um no, no, it's not nice. Uh.
The ecology this was sort of surprising to me because
I just figured they're just floating along. Maybe they melt
(21:18):
a little bit, what's the big whoop? But I didn't
really consider the fact that it's melting this glacial fresh water,
a lot of it at times, depending on the size
of the iceberg, all around in the sea water. And
that's got to have some sort of ecological effect. Yeah,
And I couldn't find anything anywhere that said, like there's
a lot of life that's adapted to living in fresh
water even though it's home is sea water, and they
(21:40):
live around icebergs. I couldn't find anything like that. But
apparently it has little effect on these animals because icebergs
are basically like floating time released nutrient capsules. Yeah, it's
like teeming with life around it. So they must love it,
these little krill and plankton. It's like a lot of
small stuff generally, Well, what there's there's a there's a
definite Um, what's that chain called food chain that iceberg support. Um.
(22:05):
They bring a lot of iron rich nutrients from the
land as a gift to the sea, and as they melt,
they slowly release this stuff. This supports um algae, right,
So there's a lot of algae that that grows on
their krill. These little tiny shrimp like things eat the
algae um, and then all these other animals eat the krill,
(22:26):
and then the birds prey on the other fish that
are eating the krill. So this whole food chain develops
around this iceberg. It's pretty cool. But even even something
that I think they've only recently begun to figure out
is that icebergs are there a sign of climate chains,
Like everybody's worried about all the icebergs melting in the
sea levels rising, and for good reason. But they're also
(22:47):
figuring out that they also aid in carbon sequestration in
the ocean. That makes sense. So this algae and all
this stuff is they're eating this iron. There's a transfer
of carbon from the land to these uh that this
life that eventually will die fall down to the bottom
of the sea and keep the carbon trapped with it,
(23:08):
So algae that wouldn't be there um is soaking up
carbon and then being eaten and passed along in this
undersea food chain, and they found that, Um, the carbon
absorption around in iceberg is twice what it is elsewhere
because this algae wouldn't be there if it weren't for
the iceberg. So there it's soaking up the CEO too.
(23:29):
That's crazy. Um, but they also take it away what
icebergs giveth uh and not just boats and chips Like
that's a tanic there, I said it, Okay, Um, they
can actually, like I said, they can clog up shipping lanes.
They can. In the case of B fifteen, I think
(23:49):
it actually um had a pretty uh deliterious effect on
Emperor Penguin's Yeah, in much of the March of the
Penguins and they so you know what happens in that
sad movie. I guess what. They have to walk around it. Yeah,
and there's a they really have a tight schedule. When
they hit an iceberg that's you know, taller than the
(24:09):
penguins don't fly, remember, and it's really wide, they have
to go around it. They learn to fly. Yeah, that
would just solve a lot of problems. Um. So yeah,
it can have negative effects on the little penguins, a
cute little penguins, and um, it can rake the sea
floor and just destroy it basically over the course of
(24:31):
many years. No good, no another cool thing. And this
I don't know. I couldn't find if they're actually moving
on this. But the United States military UM called up
the RAND Corporation said, hey, boy, these things are huge
chunks of awesome drinking water, totally safe to drink because
(24:53):
it's from the water. Boy. Yeah really I never saw
that all the way through. That was pretty um it Uh.
They called the rain corporations said, hey, can we study
these things? And how viable is it too? I know
it sounds crazy, but how viable is it to get
one of these icebergs over here and provide fresh drinking
water for people who need it? And it sounds like
(25:16):
it's not the most ridiculous idea in the world. Um.
Their study said that a system allowing a ten percent
yield could provide water for five hundred million people at
a cost of eight dollars per one thousand cubic meters,
which is not too bad. I mean, it's way more
expensive than it should be, I think, than than we
(25:36):
pay for water now. But our water is artificially cheap,
so as water becomes more expensive, if there's any icebergs left.
We may want to go do that, And they say,
I guess they just nudge it through the water closer
and closer. Um. And this is where it gets a
little hinky. It says in the article, using massive insulating
sheets to slow the melting. I don't know what that
(25:57):
looks like, but it looks like, um my l are
like you used to reflect the sun on your car.
That's what they would use. That's all it'll take, you know,
like those um sun blankets or whatever, just something to
reflect the sun sunlight radiation. Well, it's also moving into
warmer water that was not gonna melt it from below,
or it'll melt it from below for sure. Yeah, but
(26:18):
I mean you protect what you can. I guess, I
guess if you're harvesting icebergs, you're right, they're not the
they're not the only ones looking at this. UM. I
ran across an M I T proposal of building a
pipeline from Alaska, where there's plenty of glaciers that the
western US makes sense, but the author concluded it's like
four and eighty seven billion dollars to build the pipeline
(26:41):
and keep it going, and that just wouldn't be worth it,
uh in canals to another Another group studied that and
suggested a canal well and in the United States have
exactly hurting for water. It would be nice that they
did some of these studies and like pushed it to
where they don't have fresh water right now at all.
You know. Yeah, it's been a little money for them,
like straws oat. Um, well, I guess we already went over. Well,
(27:05):
Iceberg Galley is actually a little more interesting. They started
studying it. They formed the International Ice Patrol uh way
later than they should have, I guess, but they probably
didn't have the equipment they needed back in the day
to do what they do now. Um, the Coastguard US
Coastguard administers it and they worn ships. They kind of
run it through their little program and say, we think
(27:27):
this is where it's headed. This is how big it is. Uh,
if you're in this area, you might want to watch
out for this, for this guy floating your way. Well,
they basically say, like there's ice up here, don't go
above this these coordinates. That's called the limit of all
known ice. Wow. And they the Coast Guard also does
some other stuff for the I should say the Ice
(27:48):
Patrol Um, they do other things like um bomb icebergs. Ye.
Did you find out more about that? No? I looked
it up on YouTube because I was like, surely somebody's
videos everybody dropping obamba and iceberg. I couldn't find anything.
Plenty of calving stuff. Um. And they also spray paint
them with very bright paint, which it seems wrong to me,
(28:10):
just so you can see him. Yeah. Yeah, that's like
tagging like a new car or something, um, a beautiful
new car made by nature, or putting like m radio
transmitters on them, which makes sense. But then when they
start to break up, it's like, well, there's a little
chunk that has the radio transmitting three ft big. Uh.
(28:32):
So I got nothing else? I don't either, I've got
something else, all right, what you got? So it became um,
I became interested in the idea of this article mentions
a nautical mile, sure, well, like why why is there
a nautical mile in a mile? And I found out why.
So a nautical mile is um one point one five
(28:56):
o eight miles And the reason why is because a
notical mile, when going around the equator, takes into account
the curvature of the Earth. A regular mile um or
called a statute mile is what it's called. Goes from
one point on the map to another through a straight line,
(29:18):
which means that it's not taking into account the curvature
of the earth, which means that the nautical mile accurate
is more accurate and thus a little longer than the
regular mile from minute to minute along a degree. So
a mile is really not a mile. So if you're
saying on land, huh, no, it's not because it's a
it's it's it's like if you take the earth, cut
(29:39):
in half of the equator and turn it over. You've
got the two halves and you're looking in the molten
center um and you divide it into three six degrees,
divide those degrees in two minutes, and the measure a
minute to a minute. If you do a straight line,
it's not as accurate. If you do the curve line,
it will be accurate. And a kilometer is this way
out there. And seventeen the French Academy of Sciences said, okay,
(30:04):
we're gonna designate a kilometers the amount of the length
the distance from the north pole to the equator through
Paris divided by ten thousand. Pretty clever. So there you
have it, Um, nautical miles. I love it. Thanks man,
I really uh went all out on this one. I
(30:25):
think so too, kudos sir. Um. If you want to
learn more about icebergs, you can type in that word
I ce E b r g s in the search
bars how stuff works dot com and I'll bring up
this fine, fine article by A Grabowski. Um and I
said search bar how stuff works, which means it's time
for listener mail. Before listener mail quickly. I know we're
(30:49):
going to Comic Con. Oh, yes, we are. This is exciting,
It is very exciting. We've never been San Diego, California.
Right July twelfth to fifteenth. We will be there, um,
I believe on the today. Yeah, and we will be
presenting and we are not quite sure the deats yet,
but as we find out, you will find out excellent.
So if you're gonna be there, come see us. Yes,
(31:09):
come say hi to us. We're pretty friendly. We're gonna
be pressing flesh, as they say, hands, baking hands and
then okay, so I'll be listening, len okay, wait, wait,
wait again, hold on, yes, uh we have a huge
announcement dude. Yeah, um, we are running a pretty cool
(31:33):
contest if you asked me, agreed, Chuck. You know how
every Halloween we read a short story. So far we've
read one by HP Lovecraft, the tune we read Barnice
by a ground poet. Well, we thought, hey, why don't
we see what our listeners can do. This is your
brainchild and a great idea, Thank you very much. Sure,
So we're holding a horror fiction contest um by our listeners. Uh.
(31:58):
And you can say and then your submission. Uh. And
if you win, we will read your story as our
Halloween episode. That's right. Um, let's get down to brass
tacks here. Here, here's what we're gonna be ranking on
the scale of one to five in the following categories.
This has all got to be, you know, on the
level h interestingness, a plot, awesomeness of characters, well paced pacing.
(32:24):
Well yeah, it's gonna be well paced, scariness, and overall
quality of writing. And it's actually gonna be a bracket.
You can follow this. We'll have you r l s
later for you know where you can follow this bracket
on the house to work site. Well, so you and
I are going to judge all the submissions and we're
gonna select based on these this criteria the top sixteen.
Then the top sixteen gets put onto the bracket, and
(32:45):
then it's up to everybody to read and vote, and
then the one that's picked Democratic is number one. That's
the one that wins. This is I mean, I'm really
genuinely excited about this. Yes, Um, In speaking of genuine
I want to see genuinely scary stuff. Agreed. Um. I
don't want to give too many hints, but if you're
creeping into like torture porn territory, you're not going to
(33:08):
be impressing anyone with your literary skills. Agreed to get
get creative. I'm glad you pointed that out. Uh so
the if you want to submit your stuff, you jump,
you want to send it to how Stuff Works Underscore
Contests plural at Discovery dot com. Oh, and to qualify,
(33:29):
the email has to have the words by participating in
this contest, I agree to abide by the contest rules.
It's kind of mouthful, but um, it has to be
in the email that you send in your submission with
and emails that don't have that in it are going
to be disqualified. I'm afraid. Yes, And what is our limit.
We have a limit here or character or not word
limit three thousand to four thousand words and three thousand minimum.
(33:50):
Don't go under disqualified the four thousand maximum. Don't go
over disqualified. Yeah, we gotta be sticklers on the rules
here because it's official, right exactly. Um. So the whole
thing starts um, Monday, June eighteenth, and it goes until
even pm Friday, July. Okay, you have the within that
time to submit your um, your stories, and uh after that,
(34:15):
after the deadline, sorry, it's closed. I mean you and
I get to judging. I might submit under a pseudonym
just for fun. Okay, I don't know if pseudonyms are Okay, no,
as a matter of fact, sorry, no pseudonyms allowed, Chuck. Yeah, no,
pseudonym is allowed. Uh. You have to be eighteen to enter,
and it's open only to America. It is as usual,
(34:40):
one submission per person. Um. We'll post all the rules
on a blog post and put it on Facebook. Um,
but that's generally the criteria. So get to writing, see
if you can scare our socks off, and um, we
look forward to reading. This is gonna be awesome. Yeah,
this is gonna be really make Halloween wonderful. Wow, there
we go. Ready, yep, now, I guess it's time for listener. Indeed, Josh,
(35:04):
I'm gonna call this one um good email from a Chicago,
Chicago guy. That's a terrible Just yesterday, guys, I was
finished reading a book Robin Dunbar wrote called Grooming, Gossip
and the Evolution of Language. Her argument is that language
evolved out of a need to keep up social relationships
(35:26):
with group members. Put in its most basic form, Over time,
our brains evolved to be larger, which made our average
group size increase. At the same time. Once our group
size became large enough, today our average group size is
about one. We didn't have enough time in the day
to groom one on one with that many group members
(35:46):
to keep up our social bonds with them. So we
have all language, so we could use language as a
way to verbally groom with more members at a time
to keep the group strong. That's interesting. It was my
understanding that our brains have actually decreased in size and
the last years because of group group size, because it's
(36:07):
increased and we have to rely less on our like
instincts and run from thunder and stuff like that. I
smell a cage match. Um. Another interesting experiment I read
about is this to Scientists were studying vervet monkeys in
their natural habitat. They started recording the sounds of the
vervets um and make notes about what they were doing
(36:27):
when they made the noise. After examining a large sample
of noises, they found a correlation between the sound they
made and what was happening when they made it. I
believe the noises were difficult to distinguish by the naked
human ear, but the pattern was obvious when they compared
large numbers of them together. The verbets made a different
noise for when an error predator was spotted, when a
ground predator was spotted, when approaching a dominant male, etcetera.
(36:51):
It's not quite language where it like syntax, but it's
still more advanced than I thought they were. Um, and
that's pretty much to hope it wasn't too dense, but
if it was, and that has revenge for the Sun
podcast as a listener right there, that's right, and that
is from Matt Schunk from Chicago. Thanks Matt SHUNKA go bears.
(37:14):
Yeah seriously, bear. Um. I guess I always like to
hear about new books that I should be reading. I'm
sure like we have any time for that anymore. Did
you hear that that was a limit? It was? Um
send us your book recommendation, suck us. You can turn it.
You can turn it into uh s y s K
(37:35):
podcast on Twitter. Uh. You could send it to Facebook
dot com slash stuff you should know. Don't send it.
I guess you'd post it on that um. Or you
can send us an email good old fashioned electronic mail,
wrap it up, spanking on the bottom, and send it
off to Stuff Podcasts at Discovery dot com. For more
(37:59):
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff
works dot com. Mhmm. Brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know?
From House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant
and that makes this stuff you should know? How's it
(00:22):
killing everybody? It's a joy stage, Josh, so oh, I
don't know, it's just it's been a joy. Stay. Don't
you think? I'm very glad you think it's been a
joyous day. What do you think? You haven't had a computer,
so you don't care. I know my laptop has been
apparently too full of data to operate whatever that means. Yeah,
he's stuffed it up with fifty gigs of shady stuff.
(00:44):
It's right. Yeah, it's called research, I guess. So every
single bit of that it was hard facts buddy. Yeah.
And songs? Yeah? Videos is that? Well? There you go.
Videos tend to stop stuff up by especially high res ones. Yeah,
that's probably what it was. I would imagine. So on
(01:05):
your work computer, no less, Well, what am I going
to do? Cary? Answer? Computers? Why where are we talking
about this? I don't know you started it let's hear
the intro. Chuck, Yes, I'm quite sure that. Um, you'll
think I'm kind of stupid for mentioning probably the most
famous ship ever to be sunk by an iceberg, but
(01:26):
humor me. Of course. We all know the wreck of
the William Carson, which in seven went down off the
coast of Labrador. Uh. It had a number of cars
on board, but more importantly, a hundred and nine souls, right,
which is what they call you when you're to see. Yeah,
(01:46):
like a hundred and nine souls lost. I never really
hope heard that or paid attention. Really, I thought they
would say lives lost. They say souls. They say souls.
Are they used to old time, you wise, before Kennedy
in the separation of Church and date. I guess right, yeah,
I guess now they call them lives before they were
souls all souls lost. That's sad. Yeah, it makes it
(02:07):
even sader. It's like the saint crying right under certain circumstances. Um.
But the luckily a hundred and nine souls were not lost.
Zero souls were lost on the William Carson, as everybody knows.
The cars went down, though, which is a tragedy for
the insurance companies covering those cars. But as I said,
(02:27):
like every school child knows the story of the William Carson.
Did you know that there were other ships that have
hit icebergs? I was not aware of any. It's true.
The Lady of the Lake Okay, yeah, I didn't know
about that one went down in the Grand Banks. Didn't
make a movie about that. Uh no, no, you're thinking
of ex caliber Um. The Lady of the Lake went
down the Grand Banks on its way to Quebec with
(02:50):
seventy people on board, seventy souls. Um the s s
hush SHD toft hush and toft okay yeah, um off
the coast of Greenland in nineteen fifty nine on her
maiden voyage. Can you believe this? That makes it so
much worse that it's a maiden voyage. People dead all
because of icebergs. I mean, there's been other ships that
(03:12):
have hit icebergs, but um, all because a chunk of
floating ice took out an entire ship. Souls and souls
and souls were lost. Yeah. You know, we have a
young fan named Shelley Stein right now that is about
to throw her iPod through a window. Is that the
person who always wants to hear about that that other ships, thinking, yeah,
(03:32):
she's been begging for like two years leading into the anniversary.
That's right. Um. Anyway, what's crazy is that all of
these ships were lost. As a matter of fact, between
eighteen eighty two and eighteen passenger liners went down in
a place called Iceberg Galley. But it was only the
last twenty five years that we started tracking icebergs. What's
(03:54):
even more amazing, though, is that we have learned a
tremendous amount in those twenty five years, and we're still
learning and we will dispense with the learning forth with.
That's right. This is interesting. Was this a grabster? Yeah? Boy,
he puts together a nice article, then he he does.
He knows what he's doing. He's a professional. I never
feel uh, I never feel bad about about his. But
(04:17):
you feel bad about some of them. Yeah, like the
ones I write, like the ones you write. They're very adventurous.
They were for the Adventure Channel right at one point.
So chuck, um. I think people they're sitting there sitting
at home thinking right now, like they're talking about icebergs
and it's just a chunk of floating ice and You're
absolutely right. It is just a chunk of floating as
(04:39):
not just a chunk. There's so much more to us um.
For example, iceberg salt water, Nope, fresh water yep. Why well, Uh,
I learned virtually everything I've ever known about icebergs within
the past forty same here, by the way, Uh, it
is ice um, but it's not sea ice or pack ice.
(05:01):
Like when you see deadly sketching there motoring through that
that sea ice. Those those aren't little chunks of iceberg.
That's saltwater, right, that's frozen seawater. Frozen seawater and iceberg
was um is a piece of a glacier that has
busted off or calved, calved, calved like having a calf,
(05:23):
like giving birth to a cat is calving, calving, calving, calving. Yeah, man,
I had it until you threw me off. Well saying
cal I thought it would be calving, calving, caving away
from a glacier. How many times we just say calving
and a glacier. Uh, Let's talk about glaciers for a second.
Glaciers are packed snow basically. Well, yeah, but I mean
(05:47):
they're a little more interesting than that. Well, yeah, that's
the that's the base route. Though in certain latitudes, um,
it never gets warm enough for snow to fully melt
all the way in the summertime. So what you have
an accumulation of that snow that builds up over and
over and over again over the centuries, over the eons,
as old as ten thousand years old, sometimes right. Uh,
(06:08):
And that's a glacier. But glaciers are also additionally interesting
in that um, they become so heavy that they over
this freezing thaw cycle and um the accumulation of layers
that they all of the air bubbles are pressed out
of them. So glaciers are blue, the color of frozen
(06:29):
water with no air in it. Um. And they also
move under the force of their own weight. They moved downward,
downhill towards sea level, because sea levels as downhill as
it gets right until you hit the sea, that's right.
And um, So because of this, they they are this
ultra dense form of ice. So it slips down, floats
(06:53):
out into the sea. Tidal motions eventually will cause little
cracks and fissures, and then a piece of the glacier
will break off and boom there that's an iceberg. It's
a freshwater piece of the glacier freshwater glacier chunks, right,
And it's freshwater because it's made of snow, not seawater. Um.
And when you said that it floats out into the sea.
(07:15):
That's called an ice shelf. Um. And up north and
northern latitudes, Um, the biggest ice shelves are found on
the western coast of Greenland. Was there Arctic or northern
icebergs that are formed up there off of those glaciers
down south in Antarctica where there are penguins. But it's
not the only place there's penguins. I want to make
(07:35):
sure everybody knows. I know. And no polar bears. No,
only a pool would say that. Yes. Um, the pretty
much the continent of Antarctica is ringed with ice shelves
and there's a lot of open sea, so the icebergs
can get really big. They can keep extending, extending, extending,
But then like you said, yeah, they break off and
then you have an iceberg. Don't talk about ice. Yeah,
(07:58):
this is fascinating. Like I want over this again and
again and again until I finally got it, and I
feel like I got it. It's so easy though I
was making a lot of pot of it. Yeah. Uh, ice,
as we all know, is the solid phase of water
you have you know, liquid solid gas. Iis a solid
phase thirty two degrees fahrenheit for fresh water zero celsius.
(08:21):
Salt water is gonna need to be a little bit
colder because, um, there are basically salt molecules getting in
the way of the ice forming. Well. They they they
move faster I believe than water molecules, and it takes
a lower temperature to slow them down. And also it's
greater density if you're talking saltwater, right, which is important,
(08:42):
very important. But ice also is the is peculiar meaning unique,
and that it's the only solid phase of any substance.
I believe that is less dense than the liquid phase.
So ice is less sense the water, and then seawater
is denser than fresh water. So well, and it's easy
(09:06):
to remember the ice is less dense because when you
put a little ice cube in your little chardonnay this summer,
if you're a red neck, it'll float. Yeah, because there's
little uh, ice forms in a crystalline shape, so those
that leaves area for gaps, I guess, And so what
is the air in there? Uh? I'm sure there's just
(09:27):
less dense. It's just the it's just it's less dense. Basically,
if you take water and freeze it, you can think
of it as spreading out, so it gets bigger, has
it has a larger volume, but it'll weigh the same
as that lesser amount of water, right, And when you
put something, say ice, in water, it's buoyant in that
(09:47):
the amount of water displaces has to equal the weight
of the ice that's displacing it. But since there's more
ice than an equal weight of water, there's some leftover
that floats. And that is what we call the tip
of the iceberg. And when do you get confused, Yes,
the tip of the iceberg. That is the part that
(10:08):
sticks out, and it's about, depending on the iceberg, about
one six to one ninth. And I'm sure everyone's seen
those awesome pictures on the interwebs of you know, the
top of the water and under the water of the iceberg.
It's pretty cool, right, you've seen those. I have very
nice And the reason there's very variation between how much
(10:29):
iceberg is showing it is because of the variation in
the concentration of salt in seawaters or any particular part
of seawater. And and um. Also uh, some icebergs are
denser than others as more as he said, just like people. Yeah, exactly.
Uh that you mentioned earlier that glacial ice is blue. Um.
(10:49):
That is true. Um. During different melting and freezing cycles, though,
they will turn white because the air gets trapped in there. Um.
And then sometimes these really old icebergs that have formed
at the bottom of these thick Antarctic ice shelves like
that have been around for thousands of years might actually
have a greenish hue because it's just you know, soaked
(11:12):
up organic matter under there over the years, right and
then so which is kind of a dirty yellow brown.
But icebergs have the tendency to roll over without warning,
which is one reason why you wouldn't want to camp
on an iceberg. No, they're dangerous to be around. They are.
And actually there was one that floated down to New
Zealand and some helicopter charters were like selling flights to
(11:36):
go check them out, and one of them landed on
the iceberg and they realized prett quickly they shouldn't do
that anymore. Um. But did they like getting short did it? No?
They made it out okay, But when they got back
and told people, I'm sure some scientists like, wait, what
did you just do? Right? Don't ever do that again?
Tc um, but the iceberg will roll over. And so
you've got the green part up that's with the light
(12:00):
reflecting up through the blue park when you get this
brilliant emerald green. And that's some old ice right there, Bubby, Bobby, Yes, Bobby,
I've never said that before. Uh. The life cycle of
an iceberg is pretty interesting too. Why we mentioned they
can be as old as ten thousand years before they
ever reached the ocean, and um, this is like centuries
(12:22):
of compression. So that's why it's so so dense, that's
why it's blue. And then once it calves off though
and and from the glacier, you've got about three to
six years on average, right if it's like say, it's
up in the in iceberg galley and never strays below parallel,
which is apparently where the water starts to get a
lot warmer. Four Parallel goes for Americans through like the
(12:45):
tip of Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula Michigan. People below
that are like, it's still pretty cold. I imagine, um,
so ones that stay up there and never come back down,
can float around for like fifty years and just kind
of alt the way slowly and quietly. Right. Ones that
make it further south, like one made it to Bermuda once,
which I'm sure was quite a surprise. Um. Those go
(13:08):
away fairly quickly. Uh yeah, and I enjoyed this. Um.
One account of this expedition. Um. What's the guy's name?
Dr Gregory Stone witnessed and wrote about in his book
Ice Island um, which I believed the largest ones are
called ice island sometimes. Yeah. Right. Um. His quote is
in this iceberg basically became destabilized, and it sounds like
(13:31):
it exploded, like right in front of his face. Yeah.
Well he said that there was an ice debris field
across two miles. Yeah, and he said it was like
shards of crystal shattering. Right. But if you think about it,
that's what happens when you put in ice cuban water. Yeah.
You hear that noise, right, It's called thermal shock. Yeah,
it's pretty cool. And it's also because ice is less
(13:51):
dense than water. As it's liquefying, it shrinks because think
about it's contracting and it's pulling apart the outer warm
or layer from the inner colder layer, and this cracks
form and the ice cube essentially explodes. It sounds like
that's the same thing that happened. Yes, when you pour
that that twelve year old scotch on top of your
single cube of ice. If you're into that, I don't
(14:13):
know if you should be doing that. But okay, I'm
not a neat guy. I like my I like it
a little cold, and and I'm not so hardcore with
the single malts, so too remove that bite just a
bit is good for me. You don't so you don't
like take it neat through your nose as that the
way to do it. Yeah, the way you drink it
with ice through your mouth. Yeah, I know, scotch pure
(14:37):
scoff at me, but scalp away or whatever. Just do
what you like exactly. Um, that it was very supportive.
I meant you as like people in general. Okay, so
that wasn't supportive. Um, let's talk about some factoids and
this this is to me. The fact of the show
is that there are actually six official classifications with their size,
(14:59):
and the first two it sounds like they were having
a lot to drink when they had the naming party
and sobered up a bit, because the smallest one's about
the size of a car, maybe a little smaller, called growlers,
and then the next one, maybe about the size of
your house, is called a burgie bit. I put the
emphases on a bit like a burgie bit, a burgie bit.
(15:21):
Either way, it's pretty cute. It is very cute. And
then they got I guess sobered up or got bored
or ran out of whiskey, and then they said, all right,
then the next ones are small, medium, large, and very large,
which is really boring compared to burgie bit. It is,
but the very large ones are kind of interesting in
that they just keep going and going. The largest one
ever record is the B fifteen iceberg. Yeah, broke off
(15:44):
of the Ross ice shelf down in Antarctica. Apparently it
was about the size of Jamaica. Yeah. I think it's
it's broken apart into smaller piece of sense, but I
think the original um area was about sixty square miles.
That's all. That's a big chunk of ice. Yeah, And
in order to be I mean, that's the upper limit,
(16:05):
like it can just be as big as they're gonna get.
There's no like cap or anything like that. To call
it super extra large. Um, but very large. You have
to be about twenty four stories tall and a little
longer than two football field six to be classified is
very large. Yeah, that's that's big man. If you think
(16:26):
about that, Yeah, it's huge. UM. I'm sorry, it's very
large or it's huge huge. Um. The other two classifications
that icebergs can fall in are equally boring as the
last four size names. They really could have done better
than this if you ask me, But they're the t
shape classifications are tabular and non tabular. And tabular is
basically just like a well, it looks like a table,
(16:49):
like a or a tab tablet, writing tablet, and it's back.
It's like tall with steep sides and a flat tops
like a floating plateau. Um. And those tend to come
off of the ice sheets down in the act Antarctic.
I believe, Yeah those are um. I think they have
to have a with five times greater than their height
to be tabular. And then non tabular have I think
(17:13):
five different classifications. You got blocky flat top steep signs.
They sound like characters they do wedged um flat with
a steep surface on one side and a gradual slope
on another. So it's like the high right haircut. Yeah,
the gumby the gumby the dome which is round and
smooth pinnacle, which means it has at least one big
(17:35):
tall spiral sticking up, and then the ones that um
deteriorate to where they form a big canyon. And it
looks like two different icebergs, but it's really connected. Underneath
those are dry docks, so that means they have two
tips sticking out, but they're connected underwater. It's like mind blowing.
It's pretty much. It was. It's pretty neat at the
(17:58):
very least. So, um, we've got northern icebergs, southern icebergs, um,
and there's plenty of icebergs like elsewhere, but for the
most part, in northern icebergs, like we said, form off
the western coast of Greenland, because Greenland, apparently I read this,
Greenland and Antarctica are the only place where, um, there's
(18:21):
ice sheets, glaciel glacial true glacial sheets, glacial sheets. Boy,
that's a tough one, that was. It surprised me too.
I wasn't expecting that. Uh. And in Greenland there's about
twenty glaciers that cap the majority of the icebergs. Yeah,
that was I thought pretty cool. I thought it was
cool too. Um. Roughly forty thousand medium too large h
(18:46):
calv from Greenland glaciers each year, is that right? And
they are about ten percent as strong as concrete, which
I thought sounded not super strong, but apparently that's like
way harder than like freeze our ice. Oh yeah, like
this ice is different than the ice you put in
your scotch, right, which is why when icebergs run into
(19:07):
one another, it tends to break it up into smaller icebergs.
They're very much subject to um wave motion uh storms,
other icebergs land When they run into things, like they
break up, and it's one of the things that has
a big deletrious effect on their lifespan. But it's part
of the it's part of the iceberg life cycle. Going
(19:29):
with the okay, good, Um, they are pretty slow but um,
to give you an idea, like a fast moving iceberg
goes about two point two miles per hour and that's
Hauland oh, I'm glad you bring this up because that
raises a very important point because we see the tip
of the iceberg and because we're so um anthropocentric, Um,
(19:53):
we assume that wind drives icebergs, you would be dead wrong.
And assuming that since most of the iceberg is underwater,
it's currents that drive icebergs, makes sense. Yeah, um. And
so that's how icebergs can be trapped, like in the Antarctic,
because they're trapped in that current or up north in
the Labrador Current, they kind of stay trapped up there. Um.
(20:14):
But it also makes them subject to wave motion currents
from other far far off storms. And I guess getting
hung up on things underwater, yes as well. It's another
good point is um, they apparently strike the bottom of
land a lot. Yeah, and they can like wreck the seafloor,
can't they. But if you think about it, like there's
(20:35):
plenty of parts of North America where glacial movement carved
geological features are of the land. The icebergs do the
same thing when they're dragged along by the current. And
say one's a thousand feet tall underwater and it hits
a patch of sea that's less than a thousand feet
(20:55):
it's gonna strike New York City and fast go to
Central Park and look at the there. Oh yeah, yeah,
they got all those little grooves cut out, that's ice.
That's ice ice baby. Um no, no, it's not nice. Uh.
The ecology this was sort of surprising to me because
I just figured they're just floating along. Maybe they melt
(21:18):
a little bit, what's the big whoop? But I didn't
really consider the fact that it's melting this glacial fresh water,
a lot of it at times, depending on the size
of the iceberg, all around in the sea water. And
that's got to have some sort of ecological effect. Yeah,
And I couldn't find anything anywhere that said, like there's
a lot of life that's adapted to living in fresh
water even though it's home is sea water, and they
(21:40):
live around icebergs. I couldn't find anything like that. But
apparently it has little effect on these animals because icebergs
are basically like floating time released nutrient capsules. Yeah, it's
like teeming with life around it. So they must love it,
these little krill and plankton. It's like a lot of
small stuff generally, Well, what there's there's a there's a
definite Um, what's that chain called food chain that iceberg support. Um.
(22:05):
They bring a lot of iron rich nutrients from the
land as a gift to the sea, and as they melt,
they slowly release this stuff. This supports um algae, right,
So there's a lot of algae that that grows on
their krill. These little tiny shrimp like things eat the
algae um, and then all these other animals eat the krill,
(22:26):
and then the birds prey on the other fish that
are eating the krill. So this whole food chain develops
around this iceberg. It's pretty cool. But even even something
that I think they've only recently begun to figure out
is that icebergs are there a sign of climate chains,
Like everybody's worried about all the icebergs melting in the
sea levels rising, and for good reason. But they're also
(22:47):
figuring out that they also aid in carbon sequestration in
the ocean. That makes sense. So this algae and all
this stuff is they're eating this iron. There's a transfer
of carbon from the land to these uh that this
life that eventually will die fall down to the bottom
of the sea and keep the carbon trapped with it,
(23:08):
So algae that wouldn't be there um is soaking up
carbon and then being eaten and passed along in this
undersea food chain, and they found that, Um, the carbon
absorption around in iceberg is twice what it is elsewhere
because this algae wouldn't be there if it weren't for
the iceberg. So there it's soaking up the CEO too.
(23:29):
That's crazy. Um, but they also take it away what
icebergs giveth uh and not just boats and chips Like
that's a tanic there, I said it, Okay, Um, they
can actually, like I said, they can clog up shipping lanes.
They can. In the case of B fifteen, I think
(23:49):
it actually um had a pretty uh deliterious effect on
Emperor Penguin's Yeah, in much of the March of the
Penguins and they so you know what happens in that
sad movie. I guess what. They have to walk around it. Yeah,
and there's a they really have a tight schedule. When
they hit an iceberg that's you know, taller than the
(24:09):
penguins don't fly, remember, and it's really wide, they have
to go around it. They learn to fly. Yeah, that
would just solve a lot of problems. Um. So yeah,
it can have negative effects on the little penguins, a
cute little penguins, and um, it can rake the sea
floor and just destroy it basically over the course of
(24:31):
many years. No good, no another cool thing. And this
I don't know. I couldn't find if they're actually moving
on this. But the United States military UM called up
the RAND Corporation said, hey, boy, these things are huge
chunks of awesome drinking water, totally safe to drink because
(24:53):
it's from the water. Boy. Yeah really I never saw
that all the way through. That was pretty um it Uh.
They called the rain corporations said, hey, can we study
these things? And how viable is it too? I know
it sounds crazy, but how viable is it to get
one of these icebergs over here and provide fresh drinking
water for people who need it? And it sounds like
(25:16):
it's not the most ridiculous idea in the world. Um.
Their study said that a system allowing a ten percent
yield could provide water for five hundred million people at
a cost of eight dollars per one thousand cubic meters,
which is not too bad. I mean, it's way more
expensive than it should be, I think, than than we
(25:36):
pay for water now. But our water is artificially cheap,
so as water becomes more expensive, if there's any icebergs left.
We may want to go do that, And they say,
I guess they just nudge it through the water closer
and closer. Um. And this is where it gets a
little hinky. It says in the article, using massive insulating
sheets to slow the melting. I don't know what that
(25:57):
looks like, but it looks like, um my l are
like you used to reflect the sun on your car.
That's what they would use. That's all it'll take, you know,
like those um sun blankets or whatever, just something to
reflect the sun sunlight radiation. Well, it's also moving into
warmer water that was not gonna melt it from below,
or it'll melt it from below for sure. Yeah, but
(26:18):
I mean you protect what you can. I guess, I
guess if you're harvesting icebergs, you're right, they're not the
they're not the only ones looking at this. UM. I
ran across an M I T proposal of building a
pipeline from Alaska, where there's plenty of glaciers that the
western US makes sense, but the author concluded it's like
four and eighty seven billion dollars to build the pipeline
(26:41):
and keep it going, and that just wouldn't be worth it,
uh in canals to another Another group studied that and
suggested a canal well and in the United States have
exactly hurting for water. It would be nice that they
did some of these studies and like pushed it to
where they don't have fresh water right now at all.
You know. Yeah, it's been a little money for them,
like straws oat. Um, well, I guess we already went over. Well,
(27:05):
Iceberg Galley is actually a little more interesting. They started
studying it. They formed the International Ice Patrol uh way
later than they should have, I guess, but they probably
didn't have the equipment they needed back in the day
to do what they do now. Um, the Coastguard US
Coastguard administers it and they worn ships. They kind of
run it through their little program and say, we think
(27:27):
this is where it's headed. This is how big it is. Uh,
if you're in this area, you might want to watch
out for this, for this guy floating your way. Well,
they basically say, like there's ice up here, don't go
above this these coordinates. That's called the limit of all
known ice. Wow. And they the Coast Guard also does
some other stuff for the I should say the Ice
(27:48):
Patrol Um, they do other things like um bomb icebergs. Ye.
Did you find out more about that? No? I looked
it up on YouTube because I was like, surely somebody's
videos everybody dropping obamba and iceberg. I couldn't find anything.
Plenty of calving stuff. Um. And they also spray paint
them with very bright paint, which it seems wrong to me,
(28:10):
just so you can see him. Yeah. Yeah, that's like
tagging like a new car or something, um, a beautiful
new car made by nature, or putting like m radio
transmitters on them, which makes sense. But then when they
start to break up, it's like, well, there's a little
chunk that has the radio transmitting three ft big. Uh.
(28:32):
So I got nothing else? I don't either, I've got
something else, all right, what you got? So it became um,
I became interested in the idea of this article mentions
a nautical mile, sure, well, like why why is there
a nautical mile in a mile? And I found out why.
So a nautical mile is um one point one five
(28:56):
o eight miles And the reason why is because a
notical mile, when going around the equator, takes into account
the curvature of the Earth. A regular mile um or
called a statute mile is what it's called. Goes from
one point on the map to another through a straight line,
(29:18):
which means that it's not taking into account the curvature
of the earth, which means that the nautical mile accurate
is more accurate and thus a little longer than the
regular mile from minute to minute along a degree. So
a mile is really not a mile. So if you're
saying on land, huh, no, it's not because it's a
it's it's it's like if you take the earth, cut
(29:39):
in half of the equator and turn it over. You've
got the two halves and you're looking in the molten
center um and you divide it into three six degrees,
divide those degrees in two minutes, and the measure a
minute to a minute. If you do a straight line,
it's not as accurate. If you do the curve line,
it will be accurate. And a kilometer is this way
out there. And seventeen the French Academy of Sciences said, okay,
(30:04):
we're gonna designate a kilometers the amount of the length
the distance from the north pole to the equator through
Paris divided by ten thousand. Pretty clever. So there you
have it, Um, nautical miles. I love it. Thanks man,
I really uh went all out on this one. I
(30:25):
think so too, kudos sir. Um. If you want to
learn more about icebergs, you can type in that word
I ce E b r g s in the search
bars how stuff works dot com and I'll bring up
this fine, fine article by A Grabowski. Um and I
said search bar how stuff works, which means it's time
for listener mail. Before listener mail quickly. I know we're
(30:49):
going to Comic Con. Oh, yes, we are. This is exciting,
It is very exciting. We've never been San Diego, California.
Right July twelfth to fifteenth. We will be there, um,
I believe on the today. Yeah, and we will be
presenting and we are not quite sure the deats yet,
but as we find out, you will find out excellent.
So if you're gonna be there, come see us. Yes,
(31:09):
come say hi to us. We're pretty friendly. We're gonna
be pressing flesh, as they say, hands, baking hands and
then okay, so I'll be listening, len okay, wait, wait,
wait again, hold on, yes, uh we have a huge
announcement dude. Yeah, um, we are running a pretty cool
(31:33):
contest if you asked me, agreed, Chuck. You know how
every Halloween we read a short story. So far we've
read one by HP Lovecraft, the tune we read Barnice
by a ground poet. Well, we thought, hey, why don't
we see what our listeners can do. This is your
brainchild and a great idea, Thank you very much. Sure,
So we're holding a horror fiction contest um by our listeners. Uh.
(31:58):
And you can say and then your submission. Uh. And
if you win, we will read your story as our
Halloween episode. That's right. Um, let's get down to brass
tacks here. Here, here's what we're gonna be ranking on
the scale of one to five in the following categories.
This has all got to be, you know, on the
level h interestingness, a plot, awesomeness of characters, well paced pacing.
(32:24):
Well yeah, it's gonna be well paced, scariness, and overall
quality of writing. And it's actually gonna be a bracket.
You can follow this. We'll have you r l s
later for you know where you can follow this bracket
on the house to work site. Well, so you and
I are going to judge all the submissions and we're
gonna select based on these this criteria the top sixteen.
Then the top sixteen gets put onto the bracket, and
(32:45):
then it's up to everybody to read and vote, and
then the one that's picked Democratic is number one. That's
the one that wins. This is I mean, I'm really
genuinely excited about this. Yes, Um, In speaking of genuine
I want to see genuinely scary stuff. Agreed. Um. I
don't want to give too many hints, but if you're
creeping into like torture porn territory, you're not going to
(33:08):
be impressing anyone with your literary skills. Agreed to get
get creative. I'm glad you pointed that out. Uh so
the if you want to submit your stuff, you jump,
you want to send it to how Stuff Works Underscore
Contests plural at Discovery dot com. Oh, and to qualify,
(33:29):
the email has to have the words by participating in
this contest, I agree to abide by the contest rules.
It's kind of mouthful, but um, it has to be
in the email that you send in your submission with
and emails that don't have that in it are going
to be disqualified. I'm afraid. Yes, And what is our limit.
We have a limit here or character or not word
limit three thousand to four thousand words and three thousand minimum.
(33:50):
Don't go under disqualified the four thousand maximum. Don't go
over disqualified. Yeah, we gotta be sticklers on the rules
here because it's official, right exactly. Um. So the whole
thing starts um, Monday, June eighteenth, and it goes until
even pm Friday, July. Okay, you have the within that
time to submit your um, your stories, and uh after that,
(34:15):
after the deadline, sorry, it's closed. I mean you and
I get to judging. I might submit under a pseudonym
just for fun. Okay, I don't know if pseudonyms are Okay, no,
as a matter of fact, sorry, no pseudonyms allowed, Chuck. Yeah, no,
pseudonym is allowed. Uh. You have to be eighteen to enter,
and it's open only to America. It is as usual,
(34:40):
one submission per person. Um. We'll post all the rules
on a blog post and put it on Facebook. Um,
but that's generally the criteria. So get to writing, see
if you can scare our socks off, and um, we
look forward to reading. This is gonna be awesome. Yeah,
this is gonna be really make Halloween wonderful. Wow, there
we go. Ready, yep, now, I guess it's time for listener. Indeed, Josh,
(35:04):
I'm gonna call this one um good email from a Chicago,
Chicago guy. That's a terrible Just yesterday, guys, I was
finished reading a book Robin Dunbar wrote called Grooming, Gossip
and the Evolution of Language. Her argument is that language
evolved out of a need to keep up social relationships
(35:26):
with group members. Put in its most basic form, Over time,
our brains evolved to be larger, which made our average
group size increase. At the same time. Once our group
size became large enough, today our average group size is
about one. We didn't have enough time in the day
to groom one on one with that many group members
(35:46):
to keep up our social bonds with them. So we
have all language, so we could use language as a
way to verbally groom with more members at a time
to keep the group strong. That's interesting. It was my
understanding that our brains have actually decreased in size and
the last years because of group group size, because it's
(36:07):
increased and we have to rely less on our like
instincts and run from thunder and stuff like that. I
smell a cage match. Um. Another interesting experiment I read
about is this to Scientists were studying vervet monkeys in
their natural habitat. They started recording the sounds of the
vervets um and make notes about what they were doing
(36:27):
when they made the noise. After examining a large sample
of noises, they found a correlation between the sound they
made and what was happening when they made it. I
believe the noises were difficult to distinguish by the naked
human ear, but the pattern was obvious when they compared
large numbers of them together. The verbets made a different
noise for when an error predator was spotted, when a
ground predator was spotted, when approaching a dominant male, etcetera.
(36:51):
It's not quite language where it like syntax, but it's
still more advanced than I thought they were. Um, and
that's pretty much to hope it wasn't too dense, but
if it was, and that has revenge for the Sun
podcast as a listener right there, that's right, and that
is from Matt Schunk from Chicago. Thanks Matt SHUNKA go bears.
(37:14):
Yeah seriously, bear. Um. I guess I always like to
hear about new books that I should be reading. I'm
sure like we have any time for that anymore. Did
you hear that that was a limit? It was? Um
send us your book recommendation, suck us. You can turn it.
You can turn it into uh s y s K
(37:35):
podcast on Twitter. Uh. You could send it to Facebook
dot com slash stuff you should know. Don't send it.
I guess you'd post it on that um. Or you
can send us an email good old fashioned electronic mail,
wrap it up, spanking on the bottom, and send it
off to Stuff Podcasts at Discovery dot com. For more
(37:59):
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff
works dot com. Mhmm. Brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
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