Antarctic ice self on the verge of collapse

[Chris]

WILKINS ICE SHELF, Antarctica (Reuters) - A huge Antarctic ice shelf is on the brink of collapse with just a sliver of ice holding it in place, the latest victim of global warming that is altering maps of the frozen continent.

"We've come to the Wilkins Ice Shelf to see its final death throes," David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), told Reuters after the first -- and probably last -- plane landed near the narrowest part of the ice.

The flat-topped shelf has an area of thousands of square kilometers, jutting 20 meters (65 ft) out of the sea off the Antarctic Peninsula.

But it is held together only by an ever-thinning 40-km (25-mile) strip of ice that has eroded to an hour-glass shape just 500 meters wide at its narrowest.

In 1950, the strip was almost 100 km wide.

Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse due to warming | U.S. | Reuters

 

[dilloduck]

WILKINS ICE SHELF, Antarctica (Reuters) - A huge Antarctic ice shelf is on the brink of collapse with just a sliver of ice holding it in place, the latest victim of global warming that is altering maps of the frozen continent.

"We've come to the Wilkins Ice Shelf to see its final death throes," David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), told Reuters after the first -- and probably last -- plane landed near the narrowest part of the ice.

The flat-topped shelf has an area of thousands of square kilometers, jutting 20 meters (65 ft) out of the sea off the Antarctic Peninsula.

But it is held together only by an ever-thinning 40-km (25-mile) strip of ice that has eroded to an hour-glass shape just 500 meters wide at its narrowest.

In 1950, the strip was almost 100 km wide.

Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse due to warming | U.S. | Reuters

Should we get out our surfboards ?

 

[Chris]

The ocean is warming so the ice shelfs in Antarctica are shrinking, but the hole in the ozone we created is causing parts of Anarctica to cool.

It's weird.

 

[waltky]

Antarctic Ice Melting From Below...

Antarctic ice melting from below, finds study
June 13, 2013 > Ice loss in Antarctica is largely driven by warm ocean currents, a discovery that could lead to more accurate predictions of sea level rise.

Most of Antarctica's ice loss is from the bottom up, new research finds. n what represents the first comprehensive study of all of the frozen continent's ice shelves, researchers have found that basal melt, that is, melting from underneath driven by warm ocean waters, accounted for 55 percent of shelf loss from 2003 to 2008.

This figure is much higher than previously thought. Before this study, it was suspected that much of Antarctica's ice loss was the result of icebergs splitting apart and falling into the sea. “We find that iceberg calving is not the dominant process of ice removal. In fact, ice shelves mostly melt from the bottom before they even form icebergs,” said the study's lead author, Eric Rignot, in a press release. “This has profound implications for our understanding of interactions between Antarctica and climate change. It basically puts the Southern Ocean up front as the most significant control on the evolution of the polar ice sheet.”

The Sheldon Glacier with Mount Barre in the background, is seen from Ryder Bay near Rothera Research Station, Adelaide Island, Antarctica

The findings, which appear in the current issue of the journal Science, will help scientists better understand how Antarctic ice loss will contribute to sea level rise. Antarctica holds about 60 percent of the planet's fresh water. Dr. Rignot, a professor at University of California, Irvine, who also works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, found that fewer than a dozen small ice sheets was responsible for half of the meltwater. Antarctica's largest ice sheets, Ross, Filchner, and Ronne, which make up two-thirds of the continent's shelves, were behind only 15 percent of the melting.

Ice shelves, which are attached to 44 percent of the Antarctic coastline, are formed as ice from the land flows out to the sea and as snow falls on it. Ringot and his team found that the shelves were losing ice much faster than they could replace it. “Ice shelf melt can be compensated by ice flow from the continent,” Rignot said. “But in a number of places around Antarctica, they are melting too fast, and as a consequence, glaciers and the entire continent are changing.”

Antarctic ice melting from below, finds study - CSMonitor.com

 

[ScienceRocks]

1,000 sq km lol. This is one/forth the size of road island!
The square kilometers of Rhode Island is(4,002 km square)

About 7 times the land area of Portland Oregon. Wake me when the entire Antarctic east ice sheet is sliding into the Antarctic ocean. Ok?