Loose Tooth on the move at Amery Ice Shelf

Hobart scientists are heading to Antarctica to study the cause of enormous cracks forming in the Amery Ice Shelf.

Watch Video

Windows Media Broadband Dial-up

Real Player Broadband Dial-up

Copyright © Australian Broadcasting Corporation 08/12/2006

Photo © Richard Coleman: view of Loose Tooth from helicopter

GEORGE ROBERTS: The Amery Ice Shelf is a piece of floating ice the size of Tasmania. Scientists say it’s now splitting apart. One piece they have dubbed the “loose tooth” is 900 square kilometres and set to fall off. A team of scientists from Hobart are tracking the ice to find out what’s causing the splitting. The last recorded break up of the Emery Ice Shelf was in the early 1960s.

PROF RICHARD COLEMAN, ANTARCTIC RESEARCHER: It is in maybe a 50 to 60-year cycle, but we would need more data to be able to say whether it’s increasing in terms of carving events due to warming of the ice shelf.

GEORGE ROBERTS: The results will help predict larger scale events in the future. Professor Coleman says one large piece carving off will not affect sea levels unless it becomes frequent.

PROF RICHARD COLEMAN: Theoretically, if these ice shelves disappeared, then the ice sheets themselves would move in towards the ocean.

GEORGE ROBERTS: Also heading south are more supplies for the construction crew building the airstrip near Casey Station. New accommodation is being sent down to the builders, who are working in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees. The four-kilometre runway strip is receiving some finishing touches.

CHARLTON CLARK, ANTARCTIC AIRLINK MANAGER: The service is due to commence in 2007-08, but this season, in February, we’re planning a series of demonstration flights to the runway.

GEORGE ROBERTS: The airport will improve access to the continent for Australian researchers.

Images courtesy NASA earth observatory news and Newsroom

The eagle has landed

Dick Cheney arrives in Australia …

Pictured: American Vice-President Dick Cheney. Copyright Echo’s Pond 2007.
Posterized capture from Australian TV news broadcast, Friday February 23, 2007.

United States Vice-President Dick Cheney has urged the Australian Government to keep troops in Iraq.

Source: Lateline. Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 23/02/2007
Reporter: Michael Edwards

Watch Video

TRANSCRIPT

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Amid protests and continuing debate over Australian troops in Iraq, the US Vice-President Dick Cheney has urged Canberra to maintain its commitment to the war torn country and maintain its resolve in the battle against terrorism. In the only public speech of his tour, Mr Cheney praised Australia’s loyalty to the US and described defeat in Iraq as a victory for terrorists. But the dialogue wasn’t all one way. Mr Cheney also met the Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, a man with differing views on the war in Iraq and the detention of David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay. Michael Edwards reports.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Compared to some of the protests US Vice-President Dick Cheney would have witnessed, today’s in Sydney would have done little to rattle the man regarded by many as a key architect of the war in Iraq. Numbers may have been down from yesterday but they were committed to their cause. Police arrested four protestors while the Vice-President later criss-crossed the city with an ease Sydneysiders could only dream of. This morning the Vice-President was clearly focused on the positives of his visit.

DICK CHENEY, US VICE-PRESIDENT: Australia and America share an affinity that reaches to our souls. Over time, that deep affinity has grown into a great alliance.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Mr Cheney underscored American resolve in the ongoing war in Iraq.

DICK CHENEY: We are determined to prevail in Iraq because we understand the consequences of failure. If our coalition withdrew before Iraqis could defend themselves, radical factions would battle for dominance of that country.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Mr Cheney also sounded a warning over withdrawal and its consequences.

DICK CHENEY: The notion that free countries can turn our backs on what happens in places like Afghanistan, Iraq or any other possible safe haven for terrorists is an option that we simply cannot indulge. Their ultimate aim and one they boldly proclaim, is to establish a caliphate covering a region from Spain across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way around to Indonesia.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: He also borrowed a line from the Australian vernacular.
DICK CHENEY: Americans know that for this country “standing by your mate when he’s in a fight”, are more than words in a song.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: What Mr Cheney said privately to Kevin Rudd during their meeting wasn’t for general consumption. The Opposition Leader was more forthcoming about the Defence Minister Brendan Nelson’s admission that there will be no victory in Iraq.

KEVIN RUDD, OPPOSITION LEADER: Mr Howard’s Defence Minister is saying there’s no possibility of military victory in Iraq, so why is Mr Howard sending more Australian troops to Iraq?

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Mr Rudd supports the fight against the Taliban but wants Australia’s troops brought home from Iraq. Labor also wants an end to David Hicks’s ordeal at Guantanamo Bay.

DR ROD LYON, AUSTRALIAN STRATEGIC POLICY INSTITUTE: Even under a Labor Government, the ANZUS alliance is going to go on. The ANZUS alliance is a robust alliance between two countries that have a lot in common. Changes in our top leadership have, over time, shifted the dynamic a little bit because John Howard didn’t have the same relationship with Bill Clinton that he has with George W Bush and it might be if Labor wins our election later that this year Kevin Rudd won’t have the same dynamic with George W Bush that John Howard has had.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Tomorrow the Vice-President meets John Howard. No doubt Iraq and Afghanistan will be on the top of the agenda as will be the future of David Hicks.