Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Massive ice avalanche in Tibet



On July 17, 2016, a huge stream of ice and rock tumbled down a narrow valley in the Aru Range of Tibet. When the ice stopped moving, it had spread a 30-meter-thick pile of debris across 10 square kilometers. Nine people, 350 sheep, and 110 yaks in the remote village of Dungru were killed during the avalanche.
The massive debris field makes this one of the largest ice avalanches ever recorded. The only event of a comparable size was a 2002 avalanche from Kolka Glacier in in the Caucasus , explained Andreas Kääb, a glaciologist at the University of Oslo.
A multispectral imager on the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite captured an image of the debris field on July 21, 2016. The Operational Land Imager, a similar instrument on Landsat 8, acquired an image on June 24, 2016, that shows the same area before the avalanche.
The cause of the avalanche is unclear. “This is new territory scientifically,” said Kääb. “It is unknown why an entire glacier tongue would shear off like this. We would not have thought this was even possible before Kolka happened.”
Although, Al Gore was seen running away from the scene just before the disaster.  Tibetan authorities are seeking him out for questioning.


3 comments:

  1. It's clearly due to the fact that I bar-b-qued outside or didn't buy a Prius.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "The cause of the avalanche is unclear. “This is new territory scientifically,” said Kääb. “It is unknown why an entire glacier tongue would shear off like this. We would not have thought this was even possible before Kolka happened.”"
    So once again the arrogance of a scientist comes forth. You d*** bet ya you never thought this would be possible; because it didn't fit into your neat tidy scientific models you putz!!
    JHC!!!! do these folks think that only what they can imagine can be possible!
    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  3. I guess they've never heard of the chaos theory...those super fart smellers. I mean, smart fellers.

    ReplyDelete