![]() ![]() Nonetheless, “this puts the ice shelf in a very vulnerable position,” he said in a statement. It was a natural event that wasn’t caused by man-made climate change, said Swansea glaciologist Martin O’Leary. “We will continue to monitor both the impact of this calving event on the Larsen C Ice Shelf, and the fate of this huge iceberg.” “We have been anticipating this event for months, and have been surprised how long it took for the rift to break through the final few kilometers of ice,” said Adrian Luckman of Swansea University. The process, known as calving, occurred in the last few days, when a 2,240-square-mile section broke away. The iceberg is described as weighing 1.12 trillion tons. The iceberg broke off from the Larsen C ice shelf, scientists at the University of Swansea in Britain said. tons).(John Sonntag/NASA via AP) John SonntagĪ vast iceberg with twice the volume of Lake Erie has broken off from a key floating ice shelf in Antarctica, scientists said Wednesday. The iceberg, which is likely to be named A68, is described as weighing 1 trillion tons (1.12 trillion U.S. A vast iceberg with twice the volume of Lake Erie has broken off from a key floating ice shelf in Antarctica, scientists said Wednesday J. 10, 2016 aerial photo released by NASA, shows a rift in the Antarctic Peninsula's Larsen C ice shelf. A vast iceberg with twice the volume of Lake Erie has broken off from a key floating ice shelf in Antarctica, scientists said Wednesday. 2017 image of the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica made available by the Antarctic Survey on Wednesday July 12, 2017. This story was first published on CNN.This is a Feb. Then it suddenly plunged in 2016 and has stayed lower than average since. Satellite data that stretches back to 1978 shows that the region was still producing record-high sea ice extent as recently as 20. “There’s a link between what’s going on in Antarctica and the general warming trend around the rest of the world, but it’s different from what we see in mountain glaciers and what we see in the Arctic,” Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, previously told CNN. Unlike the Arctic, where scientists say climate change is accelerating its impacts, Antarctica’s sea ice extent is highly variable. Recent data shows the sea ice has not since recovered, suggesting the continent could end the summer with a new record on the books for the second year in a row.Īntarctica has experienced a roller-coaster of sea ice extent over the past couple of decades, swinging wildly from record highs to record lows. Strong winds have also hastened the sea ice decline, they reported. Researchers at the data center say the low sea ice has been due in part to a large band of warmer-than-normal air temperatures, which climbed to 2 degrees Celsius above average over the Ross Sea in November and December. “While the decline in Antarctic sea ice extent is always steep at this time of year, it has been unusually rapid this year,” scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported in early January, “and at the end of December, Antarctic sea ice extent stood at the lowest in the 45-year satellite record.” The calving comes amid record-low sea ice extent in Antarctica, where it is summer. Our science and operational teams continue to monitor the ice shelf in real-time to ensure it is safe, and to maintain the delivery of the science we undertake at Halley,” Professor Dominic Hodgson a BAS glaciologist said in a news release. “This calving event has been expected and is part of the natural behavior of the Brunt Ice Shelf. The researchers say this event was expected and not a result of climate change. ![]() The iceberg is around 600 square miles, or 1550 square kilometers. The BAS Halley Research Station is located on the Brunt Ice Shelf and glaciologists say the research station is safe. Scientists first discovered significant cracks in the ice shelf a decade ago, but in the last two years there have been two major breaks. (CNN) - An iceberg nearly the size of Greater London broke off the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica on Sunday according to the British Antarctic Survey. ![]()
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