| Title | Antarctica Just Shed a Manhattan-Sized Chunk of Ice | |
| Date | Sunday February 19 2017, @02:10AM | |
| Author | cmn32480 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the like-adding-ice-to-a-drink dept. | ||
Climate Central reports
[...] A massive iceberg roughly 225 square miles in size--or in more familiar terms, 10 times the size of Manhattan--broke off [from the Pine Island Glacier] in July 2015. Scientists subsequently spotted cracks in the glacier on a November 2016 flyover. And in January, another iceberg cleaved off the glacier.
Satellite imagery captured the most recent calving event, which Ohio State glaciologist Ian Howat said " is the equivalent of an 'aftershock'" following the July 2015 event. The iceberg was roughly "only" the size of Manhattan, underscoring just how dramatic the other breakups have been.
[...] The ocean under Pine Island Glacier's ice shelf has warmed about 1°F since the 1990s. That's causing the ice shelf to melt and pushing the grounding line--the point where the ice begins to float--back toward land, creating further instability.
[...] The glaciers [such as the Pine Island Glacier] and ice shelves [such as the Larsen C ice shelf, which is on a death watch] help hold back a massive ice sheet on land. Their failure would send that ice to the ocean, pushing sea levels up to 13 feet higher than they are today.
[...] Cutting carbon pollution presents the only path forward to stave off the worst impacts of a melting Antarctic.
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printed from SoylentNews, Antarctica Just Shed a Manhattan-Sized Chunk of Ice on 2023-06-05 01:52:45