Ice Theft in Antarctica
27 comments
·May 22, 2025johnisgood
JCattheATM
Why is it giving you trouble, though? The idea is that the glacier is taking ice that 'doesn't belong' to it, putting the other glacier at some sort of disadvantage.
Anthropomorphization isn't exactly an uncommon writing tool.
pryelluw
The fact that you don’t understand why he doesn’t understand makes me understand that in this whole conversation you’re the person with the greater misunderstanding.
JCattheATM
So witty!
Or, actually he understands just fine but chose to say he doesn't understand as a way to protest something he disagrees with. There's a chance you understood that and just wanted to try and be snarky though, isn't there? Such a valuable contribution!
detourdog
I just think the author needs a better vocabulary.
bbarnett
I think it's just an extension of clickbait.
Theft! Stealing! More emotionally laden terms.
lupire
Don't anthropomorphize glaciers. They hate that.
dfxm12
Another way to put it, as the article does, is transfer of ice to one glacier from another.
hangonhn
Yeah. I think that would have been much more appropriate but a lot less exciting.
Before I read the article I was thinking maybe some researchers were stealing ice from each other and was really excited to understand why.
madaxe_again
There’s plenty of this kinda stuff in the parlance - for instance, bees “rob” each other. Are they criminals? No, but the behaviour can be described as theft.
IAmBroom
That is much closer to the concept of ordinary human theft.
This is clickbait.
bell-cot
IIR, "capture" is the geological term used when one river or stream starts taking water from another. (Generally due to erosion shifting their courses.)
No idea if there is a correct geological term for what's happening here - but "theft", "steal", and "piracy" get the clicks, so...
OutOfHere
This is another case of the theft of the word theft for something that wasn't a theft.
metalman
the title could just be an example of how a person ends up thinking after bieng on station in antartica......glaciation starts to become personal
The term "theft" and "steal" feels really odd to me when referring to ice or glaciers, or anything that is inanimate (?).
For example this sentence: "Usually, when glaciers come into contact they merge and continue flowing together. They have also been recorded stealing ice from one another" just left me more confused than before. What does it mean for glaciers to "steal ice" from one another? I understand "merge" but not "steal" in this context.