Antarctic Ice Shelf Breaking Up
Antarctica's massive Wilkins Ice Shelf has begun disintegrating under the effects of global warming.
The collapse of a substantial section of the shelf was triggered on 28 February when an iceberg measuring 41km by 2.4km broke off its southwestern front.
That movement led to disintegration of the shelf's interior, of which 414sq.km have already disappeared.
Antarctic
Scientists made the discovery through satellite images from the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad plate of permanent floating ice 1,609km south of South America, on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula.
Now, as a result of recent losses, a large part of the 12,950sq.km shelf is supported by a narrow 5.6km strip of ice between two islands.
'Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on west Antarctica yet to be threatened. This shelf is hanging by a thread,' said a scientist from the British Antarctic Survey.
One person who flew over the site described the scene as looking like a bomb site or an explosion.
Antarctica has suffered unprecedented warming in the last 50 years, with several ice shelves retreating and six of them collapsing since the 1970s.
Over the past half century, the western Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the steepest temperature increase on Earth: 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade.
www.rte.ie/news/2008/0326/environment.html
Ultimately, ice shelf breakup in the Antarctic could significantly increase ocean levels around the world