![]() ![]() Ice rises are islands that are overridden by the ice shelf, allowing them to shoulder more of the weight of the shelf. “If the shelf is getting thinner, it will be more breakable, and it will lose contact with the ice rises.” “You have these two anchors on the side of Larsen C that play a critical role in holding the ice shelf where it is,” he said. Scientists aren’t sure, but they’re worried.Īccording to Rignot, the stability of the whole ice shelf is threatened, as the shelf front thins. The glaciers will feel less resistance to flow, effectively removing a cork in front of them.” “If the ice shelf breaks apart, it will remove a buttressing force on the glaciers that flow into it. “At that point in time, the glaciers will react,” said Eric Rignot, a climate scientist at the University of California, Irvine, who has done extensive research on polar ice. If the front retreats past that line, the northernmost part of the shelf could collapse within months. When an ice shelf collapses, the glaciers behind it can accelerate, as if the drain pipe had suddenly cleared.Īt the remaining part of Larsen C, the edge is now much closer to a line that scientists call the compressive arch, which is critical for structural support. The result is a bit like a clog in a drain pipe, slowing the flow of the glaciers feeding them. In frigid regions, ice shelves form as the long rivers of ice called glaciers flow from land into the sea. What happens if the Larsen C ice shelf collapses? Wagner, who leads NASA’s efforts to study the polar regions. ![]() “While it might not be caused by global warming, it’s at least a natural laboratory to study how breakups will occur at other ice shelves to improve the theoretical basis for our projections of future sea-level rise,” said Thomas P. But the two camps agree that the breakup of ice shelves in the peninsula region may be a preview of what is in store for the main part of Antarctica as the world continues heating up as a result of human activity. Some climate scientists believe the warming in the region was at least in part a consequence of human-caused climate change, while others have disputed that, seeing a large role for natural variability - and noting that icebergs have been breaking away from ice shelves for many millions of years. That warming had slowed or perhaps reversed slightly in the 21st century, but scientists believe the ice is still catching up to the higher temperatures. In the late 20th century, the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out from the main body of Antarctica and points toward South America, was one of the fastest-warming places in the world. But in other parts of Antarctica, similar shelves are holding back enormous amounts of ice, and scientists fear that their future collapse could dump enough ice into the ocean to raise the sea level by several metres. Larsen C, like two smaller ice shelves that collapsed before it, was holding back relatively little land ice, and it is not expected to contribute much to the rise of the sea. In this case though, the iceberg is already floating so there won’t be a substantial sea level change. The new iceberg contains so much mass that if all of it were added anew to the ocean, it would drive almost three millimetres of global sea level rise (it takes 327 billion tonnes of ice to produce one millimetre of ocean rise). Raw: Scientists study whales in Antarctica With global warming, Antarctica going from glacial to green Maps will need to be redrawn.”Ī huge crack across one of Antarctica’s largest ice shelves is nearing its breaking point “The remaining shelf will be at its smallest ever known size,” said Adrian Luckman, a lead researcher for Project Midas. The exact cause of the crack is not clear - scientists say it may not be a result of climate change - but the event fundamentally changes the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula, according to Project Midas, a research team from Swansea University and Aberystwyth University in Britain that had been monitoring the rift since 2014. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |