Two huge icebergs have broken

A joint Australian-French climate research group reported the 'calving' of an enormous iceberg nearly 50 miles (78 kilometers) long and 25 miles (39 kilometers) wide from the Mertz Glacier in the Australian Antarctic Territory in mid-February.

This ice sheet broke off when it was violently rammed by another even bigger iceberg about the size of Luxem-bourg, 97 kilometers long (60 miles) and 50 kilometers wide (31 miles).

The future behavior of these two icebergs is of great interest to many climate scientists, marine biologists and others.

Some earthquake experts are blaming this forceful Antarctic collision for possibly setting off the recent record 8.8 earthquake in Chile that killed hundreds of people and left millions homeless.

Richard Gross, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., calculated early this past week that the Feb. 27 quake in Chile actually shortened the day by some 1.26 microseconds. This microsecond dip in the day's length is 'permanent,' according to Gross.

The length of day is the exact time that it takes for the Earth to complete one rotation, 86,400 seconds or 24 hours. However, a minute change of just 1.26 microseconds will have little, if any, effect on the residents of this planet.

Recent satellite images have shown that the two icebergs are moving into what's called the 'Adelie Depression,' a coastal basin situated between the Mertz Glacier and the French Antarctic weather station to the west at Dumont D'Urville.

This deep depression is of vital importance to marine life, because it's part of the world's deep ocean circulation patterns that provide oxygen to the feeding sites of fish that, in turn, feed wildlife such as seals and penguins.

There are only a few areas on Earth where sinking waters provide oxygen to marine life. With a part of the Mertz Glacier gone, the Adeline Depression region could fill with sea ice, which would disrupt the sinking features of the dense and cold water, thereby limiting the critical supplies of oxygen at the lower ocean levels.

There are many changes taking place in the regions between Chile and Antarctica during this period of global cooling.

Next week, I'll feature the PIO XI Glacier in southern Chile that's advancing rapidly, uprooting trees that are several centuries old, while also endangering the Chilean Fjords, upsetting the balance of salt and fresh water in the region.

This glacier has now reached areas that haven't been iced over since the middle of the 'Little Ice Age' in the mid-1600s.

NORTH IDAHO WEATHER REVIEW AND LONG-RANGE OUTLOOKS

After New York City reported its snowiest month ever in February and many East Coast cities their snowiest winter seasons on record, a local student asked me to explain the new weather term, "SNOWICANE," hyped by AccuWeather and others.

Well, James, whenever blizzard-like conditions featuring heavy snows and hurricane-force winds exceeding 74 miles per hour occur, forecasters come up with such terms as 'SNOWICANE,' 'SNOWMAGEDDON,' and SNOWPOCALYPSE' to describe the extremely dangerous weather conditions.

To answer another question from the same student, no, I don't see us being hammered anytime soon by a monster 'snowicane'-type storm.

In fact, we'll be lucky to see more than a few flurries locally between now and mid-April. As I told Alecia Warren of the Press this past week, we could measure as much as 10 inches of the white stuff in Coeur d'Alene and even greater totals at the higher elevations, if El Nino weakens rapidly in the warm Pacific Ocean waters allowing colder air from the Gulf of Alaska to return to our almost snowless part of the country.

As of early Thursday, March 4, we hadn't received any measurable snowfall this month. We also had a record low total snowfall since Dec. 31, 2009 of just 2.7 inches, 2.4 inches in January and a scant 0.3 inches in February, second only to the puny 0.2 inches gauged in February 2005.

There appears to be the chance of some colder air finally pushing into North Idaho from Alaska by later next week into the 'new moon' cycle of March 16-23. If there's adequate moisture with these weather systems, we could see several inches of snow, perhaps the heaviest amounts since last December. Stay tuned, because anything is possible in March.

Longer-term, I still envision a rather cool and wet April through June spring season, if El Nino dies out. But, there will likely be some warm, sunny periods interspersed with the showers.

The summer of 2010 will probably be quite hot and dry, especially during the six-week span from mid-July through late August around the time of the annual North Idaho Fair and Rodeo, my favorite summer activity.

I should have more details in the coming weeks as to the exact rate of strength decline in the current El Nino event. We will also be watching to see if a new cooler La Nina may be waiting in the 'meteorological wings.' Again, stay tuned.

Cliff Harris is a climatologist who writes a weekly column for The Press. His opinions are his own. E-mail sfharris@roadrunner.com