Rift in Antarcticas fourth biggest ice shelf grows:
Quote:The crack now stretches more than 100 miles in length. . . . [and] 1,500 feet across
When this crack reaches the end of the ice—it may not but I think it will—a giant iceberg will break off.
Quote:The rift is expected to soon cleave a monster iceberg off the Larsen C ice shelf. Scientists estimate the iceberg could be up to 1,930 square miles in size, or roughly 10 percent of the whole ice shelf.
As these ice shelves collapse the warmer waters, that caused the ice shelves to collapse, can reach the base of the glaciers, causing them to melt faster.
Quote:Scientists at Project MIDAS, an Antarctic research group monitoring the rift, wrote in January that the breakup “will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula” and leave the ice shelf in a less stable state.
That could eventually cause it to collapse, a fate that befell the Larsen A and B ice shelves in 1995 and 2002, respectively. The Project MIDAS scientists wrote that the Larsen B breakup followed a similar massive iceberg calving event, which was caused by abnormally warm air in one of the world’s fastest warming places.
Ice shelf health is a key metric researchers are watching all around Antarctica. The shelves act like bookends, holding up the massive stores of ice on the continent. If they disappear, it will cause more land ice to tumble into the ocean, raising sea levels. Since Larsen B’s collapse, the glaciers behind it have flowed to the sea six times faster.
Six times faster. Not a guess, not a wild unsupported claim, a measurement. This is science, measurement, not propaganda. ” “Could. . .” not will, the careful language and thought scientists use.
Quote:The West Antarctic has some shelves very vulnerable to breakup, including the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf. It recently calved a comparatively small “aftershock” iceberg following a major July 2015 calving event. But satellites show that it has started to develop a large crack as well.
Previous research has shown that an unstoppable melt that would drive oceans at least 10 feet higher could already be underway in West Antarctica, though it would take centuries for the process to play out. Warming oceans and air are the main culprits.
Even East Antarctica, which is colder and thus considered to be more stable, has started to concern scientists. Research published late last year chronicled a massive meltwater lake inside the Roi Baudouin ice shelf due to warm winds blowing down from the ice sheet.
Not looking good. Really is time to act to reduce GHG emissions. You know, the four gases we emit by burning fossil fuel that cause an increase in the amount of water vapor in the air and the combined action of those GHG block more and more heat from escaping into space, warming the globe. This we have seen is shown to be happening by the use of spectroscopy—not a theory, fact.
http://grist.org/article/watch-the-ever-growing-rift-in-antarcticas-fourth-bigge...