#Antarctica iceberg breaking off 2017 series

The ice sheet is draped over a series of islands, but most of it rests on the floor of a basin that dips more than 5,000 feet below sea level. Together they drain a much larger dome of ice called the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is up to two and a half miles thick and covers an area twice the size of Texas. The Pine Island Ice Shelf is the floating terminus of the Pine Island Glacier, one of several large glaciers that empty into the Amundsen Sea.

#Antarctica iceberg breaking off 2017 crack

See the Giant Crack in Larsen C Ice Shelf That Yielded Antarctica Iceberg But around the Amundsen Sea, a thousand miles to the southwest on the Pacific coast of Antarctica, the glaciers are far larger and the stakes far higher. That’s why a Delaware-size iceberg just broke off the Larsen C Ice Shelf and why smaller ice shelves on the peninsula have long since disintegrated entirely into the waters of the Weddell Sea. On the Antarctic Peninsula, the warming has been far greater-nearly five degrees on average. The water there has warmed by more than a degree Fahrenheit over the past few decades, and the rate at which ice is melting and calving has quadrupled. In 20 a 225-square-mile chunk of it broke off the end and drifted away on the Amundsen Sea. Its edges are shredded by rifts a quarter mile across. Its buckled surface is scarred by thousands of large crevasses. Seen from above, the Pine Island Ice Shelf is a slow-motion train wreck. It was first published on Jand updated on July 12 with news of the Larsen C break. Global warming has pushed temperatures up to 5 degrees higher in the region since the 1950s and could increase up to 7 degrees more by the end of the century, putting more stress on ice, according to Climate Central.This story appears in the July 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine. However, it is widely accepted that warming ocean and atmospheric temperatures have been a factor in earlier disintegrations of ice shelves elsewhere on the Antarctic Peninsula, most notably Larsen A in 1995 and Larsen B in 2002. Project MIDAS said there is no evidence to link the growth of this rift, and the eventual calving, to climate change. 'When they disappear, ice can flow faster from the land to the ocean and contribute more quickly to sea-level rise.'Īfter the berg breaks off, Larsen C will be less stable than it was prior to the rift, and the ice shelf could eventually follow the dramatic example of its neighbor Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 following a similar rift-induced calving event.Īfter that break, the number of glaciers behind it accelerated and are still flowing faster than before. Still, studying ice shelves and icebergs is important because they 'hold back the glaciers that 'feed' them,' Luckman said. Since the ice is already floating, the newly created iceberg won't contribute to rising sea levels. Ice shelves are permanent floating sheets of ice that connect to a land mass, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

More: Antarctica's expanding ice-free areas threaten animals and plants, study says Once the iceberg breaks off, it 'will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula,' he said. We still can’t tell when calving will occur - it could be hours, days or weeks,' he added. 'The iceberg remains attached to the ice shelf, but its outer end is moving at the highest speed ever recorded on this ice shelf. 'In another sign that the iceberg calving is imminent, the soon-to-be-iceberg part of Larsen C Ice Shelf has tripled in speed to more than 10 meters per day between June 24th and June 27th,' said Adrian Luckman of Project MIDAS, a British Antarctic research project that's keeping watch on the ever-growing crack. One of the world's biggest icebergs ever recorded is 'hours, days, or weeks' away from breaking off an Antarctic ice shelf, scientists announced Wednesday. Watch Video: See the crack that could spawn a massive iceberg