Slab of Antarctic ice shelf collapses

[RB TexLa]

By Will Dunham Reuters - 2 hours 46 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Satellite images show that a large hunk of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf has started to collapse in a fast-warming region of the continent, scientists said on Tuesday.

The area of collapse measured about 160 square miles (415 square km) of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, according to satellite imagery from the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad sheet of permanent floating ice that spans about 5,000 square miles (13,000 square km) and is located on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south of South America.

"Block after block of ice is just tumbling and crumbling into the ocean," Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a telephone interview.

"The shelf is not just cracking off and a piece goes drifting away, but totally shattering. These kinds of events, we don't see them very often. But we want to understand them better because these are the things that lead to a complete loss of the ice shelf," Scambos added.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080325/tsc-uk-antarctic-ice-dad9be2.html

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[Ilsa]

2. I think there is a longer thread in LBN. Thought you should know.

Or did you start that one too? Great topic. I didn't hear a peep about it on the news tonight.

[RB TexLa]

3. I check LBN when I see something on the front page from time to time

I'm sure there are others that don't look at it too often as well.

[malaise]

4. Here's video from BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7310000/newsid_7313200/7313260.stm?bw=nb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1

Damn!!

K & R

[Orwellian_Ghost]

5. K&R n/t

[Swamp Rat]

6. k&r

[Pachamama]

7. And meanwhile the GOP still claims Global Climate Change is a farce and myth...

How much proof do these people need?

Meanwhile, the current administration does nothing....

[HCE SuiGeneris]

8. knr

[longship]

9. Ice shelves provide support to continental ice

When the ice shelf goes away like this, it removes support for the continental ice which then accelerates into the sea. The Larsen B ice shelf, on the other side of the peninsula, disintegrated in March 2002. It was the size of Rhode Island. (http://nsidc.org/iceshelves/larsenb2002/">Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses, March 2002).

(see March 2008 SciAm article, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-unquiet-ice">Unquiet Ice Speaks Volumes on Global Warming)

on edit: added SciAm link.