Ice shelf collapses
In what is being touted as the biggest event of its kind in 30 years, an Antarctic ice shelf has collapsed and broken up into thousands of icebergs, US experts said today in a new alarm over global warming.
An area of 3,250 square kilometres of the Larsen B ice shelf, off the Antarctic Peninsula's eastern coast, has shattered over 35 days, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
And with continued warm summers, other ice shelves are on the brink of collapse, the NSIDC warned.
That would portend increased flows of glacial ice from Antarctica and a rise in global sea levels, endangering low-lying land areas.
On its website, the University of Colorado-based centre said the Larsen B, a 720-billion-ton block of ice which could be as old as 12,000 years, began to disintegrate on January 31.
"The shattered ice formed a plume of thousands of icebergs adrift in the Weddell Sea," the NSIDC said.
"This is the largest single event in a series of retreats by ice shelves in the Peninsula over the last 30 years. The retreats are attributed to a strong climate warming in the region."
The centre said the rate of warming was around 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade.
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