Icebergs measured in Manhattans: Official
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It's a well-known fact that volumes of water are described in terms of Olympic-sized swimming pools, while running H2O is quantified in elephants per second, but have you ever wondered just what is the official standard for large bodies of ice?
Well wonder no more, because ScienceDaily has the answer. According to this report on Antarctic icebergs created by the Tohoku Tsunami earlier this year, waves from the Pacific earthquake swept 8,000 miles to the Sulzberger Ice Shelf and dislodged chunks of ice "that together equalled about two times the surface area of Manhattan".
The report elaborates that satellite images revealed "two moderate-sized icebergs – with more, smaller bergs in their wake".
It adds: "The largest iceberg was about four by six miles [6.4 x 9.6km] in surface area – itself about equal to the surface area of one Manhattan. All the ice surface together about equaled two Manhattans."
So there you have it. Of course, we could protest and demand ScienceDaily deploy the traditional MilliWales to measure the bergs' surface, but we do like the idea of Manhattans and ice. ®
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COMMENTS
One question...
how many gin an tonics worth of ice is that?
Manhattens Since 2002 (CNN), Connecticuts Since 2000 (NSF), SI Units?
Manhattens have been in use common use since at least 2002 when the Ross Ice Shelf calved a large berg, C-18. "The new iceberg measures roughly 47 miles by 4.6 miles (76 km by 7 km), or almost ten times the area of Manhattan."- CNN May 2002
But Science Daily in it's recent article used the words "about equal" which is as imprecise as CNN's "almost".
Descriptions of the massive berg B-15, calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000, introduced the unit "Connecticut" (from US National Science Foundation, NSF PR 00-12 - March 22, 2000, "nearly as large") . This was also, sadly, not a precise calibration.
Hence, while the Manhatten is in common use, (a) the Connecticut is the official unit for icebergs being mentioned first (March 2000) by a legitimate scientific source and (b) neither unit is fully calibrated as the precision has not been quantified at 273.16 K. Time for SI adjudication.
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