January 20, 2017
[Excerpt]
A chunk of ice half the size of Jamaica which is breaking away from West Antarctica is now attached to its parent ice shelf just by a thread, scientists reported Friday.
Covering 5,000 square kilometres (1,900 square miles) and nearly 100 storeys deep, the formation is poised to snap off from Larsen C ice shelf, creating "one of the largest icebergs ever recorded," the researchers said in a statement.
A widening rift running the length of the finger-shaped, 350-metre (1150-feet) -thick ice block grew 10 kilometres (six miles) longer some time during the last three weeks, satellite images revealed.
"The rift is likely to break off in the next few months—if it doesn't, I'll be amazed," said Adrian Luckman, a professor at Swansea University in Wales, and leader of Britain's Project Midas, which tracks changes in West Antarctic ice formations.
"It's so close to calving that I think it's inevitable," he told AFP.
Less stable
If the glaciers held in check by Larsen C spilt into the Antarctic Ocean, it would lift the global water mark by about 10 centimetres (four inches), the researchers said.
The nearby Larsen A ice shelf collapsed in 1995, and Larsen B dramatically broke up seven years later.
Recent studies have suggested that climate change may already have condemned large chunks of West Antarctica to disintegration, though whether on a time scale of centuries or millennia is unknown.
[Excerpt]
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-https://phys.org/news/2017-01-massive-antarctic-ice-shelf-ready.html#jCp