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posted by takyon on Wednesday July 12 2017, @04:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the breaking-bad dept.

A one trillion tonne iceberg – one of the biggest ever recorded - has calved away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The calving occurred sometime between Monday 10th July and Wednesday 12th July 2017, when a 5,800 square km section of Larsen C finally broke away. The iceberg, which is likely to be named A68, weighs more than a trillion tonnes. Its volume is twice that of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes.

http://www.projectmidas.org/blog/calving/

Also at BBC, PBS, The Guardian, and The Verge.

Complete Calving Coverage:

Antarctic Larsen C Ice Shelf to Calve; Halley VI Research Station Plans Move
Antarctic Ice Rift Close to Calving, After Growing 17km in 6 Days
Delaware-Sized Iceberg Could Break Off of Antarctica at Any Moment
Larsen C Rift Branches as it Comes Within 5 km of Calving


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday July 12 2017, @05:51PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday July 12 2017, @05:51PM (#538196) Journal

    Nobody in this discussion has said this calving has to with climate change

    Nor did they in the source article.

    FTA:

    “Although this is a natural event, and we’re not aware of any link to human-induced climate change, this puts the ice shelf in a very vulnerable position. This is the furthest back that the ice front has been in recorded history. We’re going to be watching very carefully for signs that the rest of the shelf is becoming unstable.”

    And since it always comes up:

    "Whilst this new iceberg will not immediately raise sea levels, if the shelf loses much more of its area, it could result in glaciers that flow off the land behind speeding up their passage towards the ocean."

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