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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 TheRaven on Friday July 07 2017, @09:26AM (1 child)

    by TheRaven (270) on Friday July 07 2017, @09:26AM (#536058) Journal
    Ice melting can also increase the greenhouse effect. The effect is caused by UV passing through the atmosphere, warming whatever it hits, and being reradiated as IR. The IR is then bounced back by the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and not radiated into space. Ice, being white, tends to simply reflect the UV directly back without absorbing it. If you replace the a huge area of white ice with water or earth then you'll increase the greenhouse effect. This is why one of the stable states for the Earth's climate is an ice ball.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @10:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @10:30AM (#536067)

    "If you replace the a huge area of white ice with water or earth then you'll increase the greenhouse effect."

    This will decrease the albedo of the surface and increase it's heat capacity, but that isn't what the greenhouse effect refers to.