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American Morning
Interview of Bill Nye, The Science Guy
Aired March 22, 2002 - 08:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Now on to a story we began to tell you yesterday, but had to postpone because of some breaking news, but it is worth going back to. The ice is melting in the coldest place on earth, that would be Antarctica. One of the coldest, anyway.
Looking at the Larsen ice shelf, a floating expanse the size of Rhode Island, and these pictures show disintegration that occurred over the past three months. That is a very rapid rate. Glaciologists say it's staggering. Is this -- pardon the expression -- the tip of the iceberg? Well, we don't know. Experts say that while it's too soon to know exactly whether the accelerated melting is due to global warming, it's difficult to find any other explanation.
I asked Bill Nye, the science guy, about it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAFFERTY: Bill, as I understand it, this ice shelf has been there for something in the neighborhood of 12,000 years since the end of the last ice age, and yet its disintegration has happened over a one-month period of time. What's going on here?
BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": Well, that's a great question. But what made it disintegrate so quickly is almost certainly this business of meltwater. Meltwater, yeah, one word in English. So, you get a layer of liquid water on top of ice, and you might all -- we all know this from our experience, liquid water is heavier than ice, so it works its way into cracks, and you get cracks in something like that because it's floating on the ocean, and so the waves of the ocean will induce cracks, especially if it gets a little warm, it gets soft. You may have ice skated on soft ice. Anyway, the meltwater works its way into the cracks, and it just drives it open like a wedge. And one of the wacky things that happened, is people were observing the meltwater ponds on top of this ice shelf, and then the ponds went away. Where did they go? Well, they went down in the cracks, and then drove the whole thing apart, shattered it, very quickly.
CAFFERTY: Is this something -- should we concerned about this? I mean, is this something we should worry about?
NYE: Well, if you're a worrying type, yeah. The whole thing is -- climatologists, climate scientists, ice scientists are reluctant to come out and say this is definitely a result of global warming.
CAFFERTY: Why?
NYE: Well, because it's very hard to make models. You know, whenever you look at a picture of the weather, and we do all the time here on CNN, we look at pictures of the weather, it's complicated.
CAFFERTY: But hasn't the average temperature down there over the last 50 years...
NYE: Oh, yes.
CAFFERTY: ...gone up four and a half degrees? Isn't that a reasonably compelling piece of evidence that something is going on that's different than what went on prior to 50 years ago?
NYE: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. So, this is -- if you stop to think about it, the amount of heat that you have to have to make something like this happen. I mean, this ice sheet is the size of Rhode Island. To make something like this happen, it's millions and millions of watts, watt hours of heat to get this thing to fall apart like this. So that heat is coming from somewhere, and it's very, very reasonable -- just as you're observing -- that it's coming from someplace else in the world where there's human activity.
CAFFERTY: If I understand it correctly, the thing that ultimately causes water levels to rise is the glacier breaking off from land and falling into the water, not the ice shelf, which is already a part of the water, or part of the ocean, simply breaking apart and melting. Much -- I mean, if an ice cube melts in a glass, it doesn't raise the water level in a glass. Am I right?
NYE: Absolutely. I encourage everyone to do that experiment. Just fill the glass up to the brimby whim bim with an ice cube...
CAFFERTY: Fill it up to the what?
NYE: Up to the brim.
CAFFERTY: That would be like the top, right?
NYE: To the top, yes.
CAFFERTY: I thought you said "brimby whim bim" there. Perhaps I miss heard.
NYE: Well, I might have said that. I was looking for comedic effect there.
CAFFERTY: And you got it.
NYE: But when the ice melts it will not overflow. It is kind of a strange thing. You might infer -- you might think that it would overflow, but it doesn't. But in the case of the ice shelf, it's floating, so when it melts, nominally, or as a first cut, it doesn't raise the level of the ocean, but the thing of it is...
CAFFERTY: What about the parts of Antarctica that are actually getting colder?
NYE: Well, that's a different sort -- let me just complete this one thought. The ice shelf is blocking glaciers which run downhill, down the mountainsides, on the continent of Antarctica and that will now speed up. There won't be this braking effect of having an ice shelf out in front of the glaciers.
CAFFERTY: OK.
NYE: So other parts of Antarctica are getting colder, yes, and this is where people say, Wow, this climatology business is complicated. And it is. That's why everyone is reluctant to definitely to assert that this disintegration, or collapse, or fracture of this ice shelf is definitely related to global climate change. On the other hand, the world is getting warmer and warmer, and for the first time in 12,000 years, this ice sheet broke apart so it is something to consider. Please. Taxpayers, voters. Think this over.
CAFFERTY: And we will. I got to go, but I want to thank you for enlightening me, not only on the subject of Antarctica and the ice shelves and the glaciers but also on the brimby whim bim, as in the top of the glass.
NYE: Yes.
CAFFERTY: I've learned a couple of pretty good things here, talking to the science guy, Bill Nye. Thank you.
NYE: Good morning.
CAFFERTY: Talk to you later.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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