Antarctic ice disintegration: “I’m m-e-l-t-i-n-g!”
On Thursday, the European Space Agency said that the Larsen B ice shelf is only HALF the size it was 10 years ago, according to observations made by its Envisat satellite! The satellite imagery shows that part of the Larsen Ice Shelf, which lies on a peninsula south of Chile, has decreased from 3,463 square kilometers (1,337 square miles) in March 2002 to 1,670 square kilometers (645 square miles) today. The European Space Agency blames the change on warmer temperatures.
“Ice shelves are sensitive to atmospheric warming and to changes in ocean currents and temperatures,” Helmut Rott from the University of Innsbruck said in an statement from the space agency. “The northern Antarctic Peninsula has been subject to atmospheric warming of about 2.5 degrees Celsius over the last 50 years — a much stronger warming trend than on global average, causing retreat and disintegration of ice shelves.”
The ice of the Larsen B ice shelf, one of the three shelves that make up the Larsen Ice Shelf, is disintegrating. The Larsen A ice shelf disintegrated in January 1995. So far, the Larsen C shelf has been stable, although satellites have observed some recent thinning and melting.
Larsen B measured 11,512 square kilometers in January 1995. It went down to 6,664 square kilometers in February 2002 after several parts broke off, and a month later Larsen B was down to 3,463 square kilometers.
Satellite observations confirm the sensitivity of the ice shelves to climatic warming, according to the European Space Agency.
-Bill at
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