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posted by n1 on Thursday July 06 2017, @09:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the breaking-the-ice dept.

A deep crack on on Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf has nearly severed off one of the largest icebergs ever recorded:

One of the largest icebergs ever recorded — 2,500 square miles, about the size of Delaware — is about to break off Antarctica, according to the European Space Agency. The iceberg could speed up the break-off of other ice chunks, eventually eating away at a barrier that prevents ice from flowing to the sea.

The impending iceberg is being carved from one of the continent's major ice shelves, called Larsen C. Scientists have been monitoring Larsen C for months now, as a deep crack has slowly extended over the course of 120 miles. Only about three miles of ice are keeping the iceberg attached to the shelf, ESA says. No one knows when it will break off — it could be any moment — but when it does, the iceberg will likely be 620 feet thick (about the height of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York) and contain roughly 1 trillion tons of ice. It'll be drifting north toward South America, and could even reach the Falkland Islands. "If so it could pose a hazard for ships in Drake Passage," Anna Hogg from the University of Leeds, said in a statement.

Also at BBC.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:10PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:10PM (#535811) Journal

    My understanding is that's not how the antarctic ice shelves work (which makes sense - a 125-mile long chunk of ice being held higher than gravity would tell it to my a 3-mile frozen section would be fighting TREMENDOUS leverage at the narrow attachment point, and would certainly have broken off by now).

    (imagination running amok,'ey?)
    How about a piece of ice sustained by the sea bottom all the size? Like sea frozen there, then snow piling on top until the weight is too much to allow the ice to float?
    In the extreme case, make the initial sea depth being zero and have only snow piling on top and compacting as ice?
    Sounds familiar? Those are glaciers. When they melt, the sea level rises. Like the Greenland icesheet meltdown [sciencemag.org]

    (yes, one can imagine glaciers that are actually advancing in the sea without calving icebergs - too thick to start with when pushed by the ice sheet behind. Or just surface melting until lightweight to stat floating. In both cases, the sea level will grow because of the water displaced or the result of melting)

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