A massive crack in one of Antarctica's largest ice shelves is very close to breaking point, and when it fractures it will create an iceberg bigger than Kangaroo Island.

The Larsen C ice shelf is located on the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out towards South America.

A large fracture, which has been growing across the ice sheet for decades, has recently started to accelerate, said Sue Cook, a glaciologist from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre.

According to the latest data by a team of UK scientists, the fracture ripped open by 17 kilometres in the last week of May and turned towards the ocean.

Dr Cook said the lengthening fracture was within 13 kilometres of the sea, and there was nothing to stop it fracturing.

When it breaks it will create an iceberg of 5,000 square kilometres.

Dr Cook said it was really hard to pin down exactly why this is happening.

The Antarctic Peninsula is rapidly warming, but there is no evidence to link the cracking of the ice shelf to climate change.

"In this case it is really hard to say whether it has something to do with global warming or not," Dr Cook told the World Today.

Dr Cook said once this iceberg calved, the front of the shelf would have moved back to the furthest point that's ever been recorded.

"So that implies that there is a process that is causing it to move more ice than it has in the past," she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-06-02/antarcticas-larsen-c-ice-shelf-clo...

Yea. All that floating ice. It has got to reach a breaking point eventually.

LATEST UPDATE

     

Any day now, one of the world’s biggest icebergs is expected to break from Antarctica’s massive Larsen C ice shelf and float off in the Southern Ocean.

The European Space Agency issued a press release Wednesday, offering updates on the cracking shelf obtained from its CrySat satellite, which measures and monitors polar ice.

The deep crack has extended over the course of 100 miles now and, according to the ESA, only three miles separate the Larsen C crack from open water.

The Larsen C ice shelf was next in line after the collapse of Larsen A in 1995 and Larsen B in 2002, both situated north of Larsen C.

http://www.ajc.com/news/national/things-know-about-antarctica-cracking-larsen-ic...

lee wrote on Jun 18^th, 2017 at 11:43am:


And proves nothing - it's been happening since Adam & Eve.

Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 8^th, 2017 at 5:22pm:


Except your graph says not.

Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 8^th, 2017 at 6:05pm:



you can choose either. not much difference.

Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 8^th, 2017 at 6:05pm:


yep. been happening for years.

Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 8^th, 2017 at 6:05pm:


And you can't even get to that level.

Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 8^th, 2017 at 8:12pm:



Well no. We don't know how much. We do know icebergs have been around a long time.

More Bluff, Bluster and Bullshit.