Antarctic ice shelf collapsing

Earlier this week a 160 square mile section of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf collapsed into the sea.  "Hard to believe that 500 billion tonnes of ice sheet has disintegrated in less than a month," said British Antarctic Survey glaciologist David Vaughan.  The collapse has been attributed to global warming.  Ice shelves ringing Antarctica hold back land-based glaciers and keep them from from flowing into the sea.  Because they float on the water, like ice cubes in a glass, disintegrating ice shelves do not raise sea levels.  However, if land based glaciers flow into the sea more quickly there could be consequent rises.  Even as this event demonstrates that the earth is warming some contrary events are taking place at Antarctica itself.  This year there's higher than normal snowfall in parts of Antartica and greater than normal amounts of sea ice are forming. Christian Science Monitor Images of shelf collapse at National Geographic CNN NPR Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Hits: 348 Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment Name Email Comment smaller | bigger I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage. Write the displayed characters Add Comment

Last Updated ( Saturday, 29 March 2008 )

 

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