by Daniel Brouse for The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment
A 1,930 square mile chunk of ice is getting ready to fall off a glacier in Antarctica. In December 2016, a large crack appeared in part of Larsen C ice shelf.
Global warming is increasing the temperature of the ocean water even more than the temperature of the air; however, Andrew Fleming (sensing manager at the British Antarctic Survey) said the ice was being thawed both by warmer air above and by warmer waters below the ice.
The Larsen B ice shelf has already been severely impacted. “Larsen B shattered like car safety glass into thousands and thousands of pieces,” Fleming said. “It disappeared in the space of about a week.”
“If it doesn’t go in the next few months, I’ll be amazed,” project leader Prof Adrian Luckman said. “There hasn’t been enough cloud-free Landsat images but we’ve managed to combine a pair of Esa Sentinel-1 radar images to notice this extension, and it’s so close to calving that I think it’s inevitable.”