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Comment by _hao | Hacker News Reader

I know this can potentially sound very stupid given the actual size, but can't we bomb it (target specific parts with a lot of firepower) in an attempt to break it up if it poses such a danger to actual wildlife if it collides/approaches the island? The ocean then potentially will carry some of the pieces away and miss the island?

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There have been tests to accelerate the breakup or melting of icebergs with bombs, and it has been found to be ineffective and expensive even for much smaller icebergs: https://navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=iipIsItPracticalToDestroyI...

That's unfortunate. I liked the elegance of such a brutish potential solution.

I know this definitely sounds dumb and juvenile, but I genuinely wish more problems could be solved with bombs.

Surely you’re familiar with the exploding whale story, but if not:

https://youtu.be/V6CLumsir34

Or Project Plowshare

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare

Why do people always feel the need to interfere with nature? Looking at their diagram of penguin colonies it looks like at most 40% could be blocked from the sea by this iceburg. Yes it will suck for the half of the island that gets wiped out but in 10 years when this thing is melted and gone the penguins from the other side will reestablish colonies and life will go on.

Because we can, and we are nature too.

We are nature. We did this. We did global warming. Without global warming this probably would not have happenned. So we try to solve it ( or not)

"I see an iceberg and I want it painted black"

                                  The Melting Tones

This thing is the size of Jamaica with a draft of 200m (and so a height of more than that). It would take multiple nuclear weapons to do it any real kind of damage.

I didn't want to mention nukes as to the potential fallout that close to this precious wildlife will probably do way more harm than the actual iceberg.

Presumably same issues as nuking hurricanes :) https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd-faq/#hurricane-mitigation

I know the article makes the Jamaica comparison. But the iceberg is 4200km sq and Jamaica is 10000km sq.

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