Huge Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegrating
Updated:11:06, Wednesday March 26, 2008
A massive ice shelf the size of the Isle of Man has started to break away from the Antarctic mainland because of global warming, experts have warned.
The Wilkins ice shelf breaking apart
Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey have been closely monitoring the Wilkins Ice Shelf and say a large section is already disintegrating.
The main part of the shelf is now only supported by a thin strip of ice, hanging between two islands.
The event has happened much earlier than predicted. In 1993, experts warned the shelf would break away in 30 years, if global warming continued.
The collapse of the shelf was triggered on February 28 when an iceberg measuring 25.5 by 1.5 miles broke off its southwestern front.
That movement led to disintegration of the shelf's interior, of which 160 square miles have already disappeared, scientists said.
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad plate of permanent floating ice 1,000 miles south of South America, on the south west Antarctic Peninsula.
"Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on West Antarctica yet to be threatened. This shelf is hanging by a thread," David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey, said.
Shelf is below South America
During the past half century, the western Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the steepest temperature increase on Earth, 0.5C per decade.
With the Antarctic summer drawing to a close, scientists do not expect the ice shelf to further disintegrate in the next several months.
Ice shelf break-up in the Antarctic - more than 5,000 square miles have been lost over the past 50 years - could significantly increase ocean levels around the world.
In 1995 the Larsen A Ice Shelf - 47 miles long and 22 miles wide - disintegrated, fragmenting into icebergs in the Weddell Sea.
According to some calculations based on the present sea level rise of 3mm per year, ocean levels could rise by 1.4m (4.6ft) by the end of the century.
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'an excuse to tax us' "more tax" "scam for tax". My god, what is wrong with these people? People making comments about 'dont these experts know we are coming out of an ice age' etc etc. For starters no government, not one, were the ones to start making comment about global warming. It was the scientific community, the VAST majority of the scientific community so drop these stupid 'its for tax' comments. Secondly, yes the experts do have access to all the data. Far more data and information than you can shake a stick at and its after reviewing all of this that they draw their conclusions. All these armchair 'experts' that seem to know more than the people who make it their life's work to study. Oh, and Vinland is now considered to have been named after the old Norse word 'Vin' meaning pasture or meadow, not grapes. Posted by John from USA
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No Simon Quine you are wrong!! SKY and the BBC reported that "The collapse of the shelf was triggered on February 28 when an iceberg measuring 25.5 by 1.5 miles broke off its southwestern front", they didn't say the Isle of Man was that size. It's hardly surprising that global warming isn't taken seriously if the people reading the articles cannot read and digest simple EnglishPosted by David from London
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its now spring and its gonna be a couple of days when april comes, we are not meant to have snow the way we have been having it over the last couple of weeks. and people say it aint got nothing to do with the climate. wake up people cos it aint funny. Posted by louise from north london
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