Flipped Iceberg (2014) | Hacker News Reader

Flipped Iceberg (2014)

alexcornell.com

225 pointspif38 comments

Can I complain about popular iceberg imagery? Most of the depictions of icebergs (1) that show them underwater are completely fake and like the "dead butterfly" post here recently aren't even remotely plausible. They're always shown as tall and skinny, but that's ridiculous, they'd be unstable. I've read that the classic picture is actually composited from two above-water shots, one flipped upside down and blue tinted to look underwater. Some of the images in that Google search I link are ludicrously unrealistic.

(1) https://www.google.com/search?q=glacier+underwater

Icebergs do become unstable, though. That's why they flip.

One of the most famous (and profitable) iceberg photos is a composite.

See https://petapixel.com/2015/09/24/the-iceberg-stock-photo-tha...

http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/iceberg.asp

That's exactly what made me realize this. Everything since then seems to have just copied that image. Of course, it partly makes sense. Icebergs are generally too large to photograph underwater clearly since visibility will probably never be that good and the lighting would be terrible, so they'll always have to be composites.

Also, whoops. Why did I link to a search for "Glacier underwater" instead of "iceberg"?

That's funny. The artists impression looks like it is based on a burried rock sticking out of the dirt.

> They're always shown as tall and skinny, but that's ridiculous, they'd be unstable.

I think icebergs are inherently unstable, that's why they're icebergs in the first place. They do also flip (see OP!). Tall skinny things are also not a bad way to go in the ocean, that's how some deep sea oil drilling platforms work[1]. Or something like the RP Flip[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spar_(platform) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP_FLIP

Those things aren't at near-constant density, though. And although the article shows that icebergs do flip, the fact that the Smithsonian wrote an excited piece about it suggests that it doesn't happen too frequently. And it sounds like that happens because pieces break off or melt. The examples in the image search aren't just kinda unstable; they're completely implausible.

I humbly submit this magnificent calving:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU

Mind boggling. A chunk of ice the size of Manhattan rolling over.

That was terrifyingly beautiful!

Jökulsárlón lagoon in southern Iceland is a fascinating place for this - large blocks of ice break from the glacier at the top end and slowly float towards the outlet of the lagoon to the sea.

Near the outlet the iceburgs catch on the bed of the lagoon and tumble as they melt. There's a glorious variety of colours as the ice as the freshly exposed dark glacier ice is exposed - like in the attached article - before the ice surface melts and it returns to a white colour.

I was there last year but it was quite overcast and foggy. Even still, we did catch minor glimpses of these gorgeous icebergs.

Something for scale in those images would have been nice. Perhaps the video does the size justice.

Yes, definitely. You can almost trick your mind into believing it's a high-res photo of blue jello.

I wintered over in Antarctica at Palmer Station last year (2016). We saw icebergs flip frequently, never got any photos of this quality though.

Antarctica is an incredible place, truly nothing else like it.

A pity that the photos are of such low resolution.

Also, there is no reference, so you can't tell how big the structure really is.

Why did iceberg flip over? Is this related to warming?

The submerged part melts quicker than the top.

Also snow can accumulate on the top of the iceberg.

A better link is: http://www.alexcornell.com/antarctica/ His background video is also worth a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srO3IWVmVus

Admins: please replace OP with this link, much better

Ah man that video is great!

Thanks for sharing. It was great seeing the edits he did to the photos.

Highest res of original image: http://www.alexcornell.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Alex-C...

That is by far the funkiest mirror I have ever seen.

So much better. I spent a minute waiting for the original to load and only got ads.

Their terrible popovers (namely the Dunkin Donuts one) break scrolling on the page and make viewing the content impossible. Well done.

Like seriously, what the hell link did I just click on? This has to be the worst mobile ad experience in recent memory.

I blame myself tbh. Saw Smithsonian so I gave it benefit of the doubt, but what could we have expected from "These 3 icebergs flipped over and you'll never believe what happened next" bullshit title

Firefox mobile + *Ublock = bliss.

You probably mean 'ublock' (autocorrect issue?)

Hmm; mine was fly to Taiwan. I instantly left though. Going to check the links posted within this thread

I got redirected to some winning notification that also stole focus from another app and broke the navigation history. All I could do was to close the tab. It's really ridiculous what Google allows and tolerates on mobile Chrome these days.

Firefox for Android supports uBlock.

(2014)

Did that Iceberg rollover when it heard the news today ?

2015

Why are we allowing pics now?

Such comments are boring to read. Clearly enough users found it interesting and on-topic enough to upvote.

"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The underside of an iceberg is known as the "covfefe"

The flipped iceberg is beautiful to see. The Antarctic iceberg crack that developed a fork isn't.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39779761

Reply on news.ycombinator.com