Fast-spreading crack threatens giant Antarctic ice shelf Larsen C could shed Delaware-sized section within next few years BREAK UP Last year a crack … The crack, now more than 100 miles long, could lead to a complete separation of the Larsen C ice shelf. When they intersect, an iceberg twice the size of New York City will slide into the ocean. Because of the unpredictability of iceberg calving, and the difficulty of evacuating during the dark and frigid winters, the research team has been working at the station only during the Antarctic summer over the past four years. You will receive a verification email shortly. The Dirty Campaign Underlying Ecuador’s “Free and Fair” Election, The Myth of Peace in the Middle East: Deconstructing the Naturalization Narrative, U.S. Visit our corporate site. The team at the Halley Research Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf captured an aerial photo of the North Rick crack in January 2021. Instrument: Landsat 8 — OLI https://countercurrents.org/2020/09/antarctica-cracks-in-the-ice This iceberg, however, happened to be very big, with an estimated size of about 490 square miles (1,270 square km). The new iceberg finally separated from the rest of the ice shelf on February 26th, according to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), which says it is 1,270 km² in area – about twice the size of the City of Toronto. Huge Cracks In the West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Signal Its Collapse. A Taste of Patriarchy in Speech: Language and Gender, Contribution of Urban Gardening Can Improve Greatly with A Few Changes, Comparing Response to Two Important Diseases—Tuberculosis and COVID-19, Fight against Covid-19: Incompetence or deliberate negligence, Empire’s Afghan War: A lost war, a profitable war, Raul Castro steps down, next generation of anti-imperialist leaders take responsibility. Ice shelves are only found in Antarctica, Greenland, Northern Canada, and the Russian Arctic. — Life on the edge: photos from drilling the ross Ice Shelf, — In photos: Antarctica's larsen C ice shelf through time. Share. Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica calves. By . The damage researchers found pointed to a weakening of the glaciers’ shear margins – areas at the edges of the floating ice shelf where the fast moving ice meets the slower moving ice or rock underneath. A 70-mile-long crack runs across the Larsen C Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. Follow. By Veronica Cruz Published May 15, 2015 at 5:40 AM GMT. A crack in Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf that is more than 100 miles (160km) long has grown by another 6 miles (9.6km) in just over two weeks, shocking new images have revealed. An aerial shot of the North Rift crack in the Brunt Ice Shelf. 11/28/16 1:57PM. Scientists gathering in the U.K. are scratching their heads about why it's cracking off. Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf is replete with cracks. London: As climate change is making temperatures soar, more than a third of the Antarctic’s ice shelf could be at risk of collapsing into the sea, and causing global sea-levels to rise, new research has shown. The study comes on the heels of research published last week that found deep channels under the Thwaites Glacier may be allowing warm ocean water to melt the underside of its ice. As the US plans its Afghan troop withdrawal, what was it all for? "Over [the] coming weeks or months, the iceberg may move away; or it could run aground and remain close to Brunt Ice Shelf." The crack has spread 17 miles over the past six days, marking the biggest leap since January. An iceberg larger than New York City has broken off an ice shelf in Antarctica, scientists say. Brunt Ice Shelf British Antarctic Survey Andy Van Kints. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey first detected cracks in the shelf ten years ago. Joins Past Empires In Afghan Graveyard, India should welcome the end of US occupation of Afghanistan, Hindi Cinema Has Not Properly Tapped the Potential of Social Thrillers, Movements for Improving Internal Strengths, Integrity and Resilience of Rural Communities, Mohammad Azharuddin was simply the ultimate embodiment of cricketing poetry and grace, Jean Swanson honoured for standing up for Indian farmers and opposing CAA, Mumia Abu-Jamal is Scheduled for Open-Heart Surgery –Racism Remains the Greatest Medical Threat to Mumia’s Health. A massive iceberg the size of Delaware is now even closer to breaking free from Antarctica, due to a widening crack in the ice shelf, scientists report. (Stef Lhermitte, Sainan Sun, Christopher Shuman, Bert Wouters, Frank Pattyn, Jan Wuite, Etienne Berthier, Thomas Nagler. Whether Antarctic ice shelves are gaining or losing ice at the surface – their surface mass balance (SMB) – depends on many factors. Bio. One crack has been growing for months, and a 490-square-mile iceberg broke off on Friday. The Milne ice shelf was on of the Arctic's few remaining intact ice shelves, but at the end of July 2020 about 43% broke off. In recent years, the Pine Island Glacier and the Thwaites Glacier on West Antarctica has been undergoing rapid changes, with potentially major consequences for rising sea levels. The cavities hidden beneath the ice shelf are likely to be the route through which warm ocean water passes underneath the ice shelf up to the grounding line, they said. While the physical size of the potential iceberg isn’t especially remarkable, the crack’s proximity to the British Antarctic Survey Halley VI Research Station is concerning. The territory’s ice sheet is the second biggest in the world behind Antarctica’s, and its annual melt contributes more than a millimeter rise to sea levels every year. 11/28/16 1:57PM. The at-risk ice makes up two-thirds of the peninsula's ice shelf extent. This dramatic breakup comes after a major crack formed on the shelf in November 2020 and continued to grow until the 'berg finally broke off Friday morning (Feb. 26). Similarly, the damage to Thwaites Glacier began moving further upstream in 2016 and fractures rapidly started opening up near the glacier’s grounding line, which is where the ice meets the rock bed. Knife-wielding spider god mural unearthed in Peru, Part-human, part-monkey embryos grown in lab dishes, Man's energy drink habit lands him in the hospital with heart failure, Tiny Jurassic 'Monkeydactyl' has the oldest pair of thumbs on Earth. In just 19 years CO2 levels increased by just over 2ppm/year. The 119,300-square-mile (192,000-square-kilometer) ice shelf is disappearing faster than any other one in the region in large part because of the waters circulating beneath it and wearing away at its base. Published Sep 8, 2016 Image of the Day Snow and Ice Remote Sensing Sea and Lake Ice Email. Chris Mooney. "Our job now is to keep a close eye on the situation and assess any potential impact of the present calving on the remaining ice shelf," Simon Garrod, the BAS director of operations, said in the statement. Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offer. The level[Read More…], Narrow Response to Crisis Situations Which Ignores Basic Causes Will Not Resolve The Crisis. An ice shelf is a large floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Future US, Inc. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, Will we ever know exactly how the universe ballooned into existence? An Antarctic ice shelf that has stood for 10,000 years is going to break apart by the end of this decade. A giant iceberg, more than 20 times the size of Manhattan, just split off from Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf. Satellite images show that two important glaciers in the Antarctic are sustaining rapid damage at their most vulnerable points, leading to the breaking up of vital ice shelves with major consequences for global sea level rise. Does Historiography Transcend Anachronism? Crack in Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf forks CRACKED OPEN A new rift has branched out from the 180-kilometer-long crack (shown) along Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf, new satellite maps reveal. Image of the Day for January 20, 2021. The North Rift crack grew toward the northeast at a rate of about 0.6 miles (1 km) per day in January; but on the morning of Feb. 26, the crack widened a couple hundred meters in just hours. The narrow and mountainous Antarctic Peninsula extends north from West Antarctica some 800 miles toward Chile. A Chicago-sized piece of the shelf known as Larsen D is about to break off, a glaciologist says. Chris Mooney. They are publishing about this in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Now it is 415 ppm. https://countercurrents.org/2020/09/antarctica-cracks-in-the-ice Antarctica: cracks in the ice. New satellite images show an enormous crack or rift in the Larsen C ice shelf has suddenly forked and accelerated toward the Southern Ocean. Maddie Stone . Please refresh the page and try again. A crack on the Antarctic ice shelf grew dramatically in late 2020 into 2021. This picturesque region has warmed at least twice as fast as … The British Prime Minister, Oxford MPs and the Green Party MP on Farmers Protest in India. Chris Mooney. The scientists have found that while the tearing of Pine Island Glacier’s shear margins has been documented since 1999, their satellite imagery shows that damage sped up dramatically in 2016. Over the past three decades, the rate of ice loss from Thwaites and its neighboring glaciers has increased more than five-fold. The Brunt Ice Shelf, a 492-foot-thick (150 meters) slab of ice, flows west at 1.2 miles (2 km) per year and routinely calves icebergs. A giant iceberg, more than 20 times the size of Manhattan, just split off from Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf. Scientists, however, are skeptical of the role of climate change in this case. Here, we use the high‐resolution MAR model to explore how ice shelf SMB changes under warming scenarios of … It broke off from the northern region of Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf on Feb. 26, just a few months after a large crack formed in November 2020. NY 10036. 129. Disha Ravi, Sophie Scholl And The Unravelling Of Indian Fascism, Keep Countercurrents Alive ! © Chris Mooney. In total, 190,000 square miles (500,000 square kilometers) of Antarctic ice would be at risk. Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf is replete with cracks. The Halley Research Station is automated and unstaffed during the winter months, and is not threatened by the latest calving. Cracks and damage along the Pine Island Glacier have been well-documented. This image taken 12 December 2000 and released by NASA 22 March 2001 shows a crack … For comparison's sake, the Delaware-sized iceberg (known as A-68) that broke off of the Larsen-C Ice Shelf in July of 2017, measured approximately 2,250 square miles. This ocean warming has increased the melting and calving (the breaking off of ice chunks) of Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, studies show, while declining of snowfall means the glaciers can’t replenish themselves. A massive Antarctic ice shelf – Larsen B – is rapidly weakening and will probably disintegrate completely by 2020, scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, warned on Thursday. More than a dozen GPS monitors measure and relay information about ice deformation of the shelf back to the team in the U.K. every day. A crack in an Antarctic ice shelf has grown by 17 miles in the last two months, scientists said. Two cracks on the Brunt Ice Shelf are creeping closer to each other. They are calling for this information to be taken into account in climate modeling, in order to improve predictions of the contribution these glaciers are making to rising sea levels. In 2016, the BAS relocated the station 20 miles (32 km) inland to avoid the two other major cracks in the ice shelf known as "Chasm 1" and the "Halloween Crack," both of which haven't widened any further in the past 18 months, according to the statement. Crack Advances Across Antarctic Ice Shelf. https://www.livescience.com/brunt-ice-shelf-breaks-antarctica.html Damage accelerates ice shelf instability and mass loss in Amundsen Sea Embayment. Reporter. A crack on the Antarctic ice shelf grew dramatically in late 2020 into 2021. At the peak of the 2019-2020 melt season, jewel-toned ponds of meltwater spanned a vast area on the George VI ice shelf—a huge slab of floating glacier ice attached to the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. While the physical size of the potential iceberg isn’t especially remarkable, the crack’s proximity to the British Antarctic Survey Halley VI Research Station is concerning. 23. If Thwaites were to collapse, it could lead to an increase in sea levels of 64 centimeters. Over a third of the Antarctic ice shelf is at risk of collapsing as Earth continues to warm. New York, Right now, a big chunk of Antarctic ice is hanging on by a frozen thread. The Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica has been calving icebergs for decades. This damage consists of crevasses and fractures in the glaciers, the first signs that the shear zones are in the process of weakening. An airplane flies over the North Rift crack in the Brunt Ice Shelf in January. An Appeal From Satya Sagar. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Sept. 14, 2020; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1912890117). North Rift is the third major crack through the ice shelf to become active in the last decade. 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