Crack in Larsen C suggests another ice shelf collapse underway — HotWhopper Chat HotWhopper Chat
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  • But, but, Antarctic sea ice extent is growing!
  • edited August 2016
    Sea Ice as you know is, however perhaps due to a tightening of the vortex around the continent.
    One study points out the effect of the Ozone hole and CFC causing a high altitude lowering of pressure.
    As to weather the actual amount of ice is increasing due to increased snow fall, which is more than the melting and speed up of glacial movement has to be determined, if am not mistaken.
    I did read a more update article but my memory fails me ATM. however this may be along the lines of what i mean.
    https://theconversation.com/melting-glaciers-deform-the-earths-mantle-and-crust-26732

    Yes i know your comment was in jest.

  • An ice shelf is not really sea ice, it is feed from a glacier. Yes, the crack in Larsen C is now well past the suture zone in the ice shelf, nothing will stop it now.
  • Very interesting, I had never thought of rebound actually raising sea levels. Thanks for that link.
  • I had always thought (maybe naively) that an ice shelf was "undercut" and self supporting in some fashion and that it didn't displace (as) much water?  That's half remembered by a talk that I watched but I'm bound to be confusing it with some other glacial feature (nb: it doesn't even snow where I live).

    I'm plodding through an article from JGR ("The structure and effect of suture zones
    in the Larsen C Ice Shelf, Antarctica") looking at the diagrams; trying to form a picture in in my head of the cross section of Larsen C and what volume of ice is/isn't grounded?  From what I've read they're talking about an "ungrounded" area of many square km and hundreds of meters thick.  Cubic kilometres of ice is pretty mind boggling stuff - it certainly freaks me out.

  • Here are a couple short videos.
    10,000-Year Old Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegrating 
    GeoBeats News
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovYFhEhuT2Y
    Published on May 15, 2015

    New NASA research has found that the 10,000-year old Antarctic ice shelf named Larsen B will likely disintegrate in the next few years due to warming conditions. According to new research by NASA, the Larsen B Ice Shelf, located in Antarctica, will likely break apart completely within the next five years.

    Scientists have identified signs of an impending disintegration which include the appearance of major cracks, evidence of fragmentation, and increased water flow around the area.

    It was earlier believed the ice shelf was stable, because conditions only shifted slightly after a collapse in 2002, but recent measurements show changes happening more rapidly.

    Certain glacier sections have shrunk by 65 to 72 feet in thickness, and the flow rate in one part has become 36 percent faster.

    Estimated to be over 10,000 years old, Larsen B is currently 625 square miles in size and about 1,640 feet deep at its thickest point.

    Climate change: 130-km-long crack might cause Antarctic Larsen C ice shelf to break off - TomoNews
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3nZbIRi7WM
    Published on Aug 29, 2016

    ANTARCTICA — The effects of global warming have reached even the coldest corners of the world, and now threaten to collapse Antarctica’s fourth-largest ice shelf.

    According to the British Antarctic Survey, the Larsen C ice shelf sits on the northernmost part of the Antarctic peninsula and is slightly smaller than Scotland. Its entire area consists of a thick sheet of ice that extends from the ice caps on land and floats over deep ocean waters.

    Warming temperatures have caused cracks to form across Larsen C, the progression of which has been continuously monitored by scientists. From 2011 to 2015, the crack grew 30 kilometers, and was 200 meters wide by 2015. Between March and August 2016, the rift grew another 22 kilometers and widened to 350 meters, according to Project Midas, a research collaboration funded by the British Antarctic Survey. 

    With the full length of the rift now at 130 kilometers, researchers predict a big chunk — about 10 percent of the ice shelf — will soon break off.

    The partial loss of Larsen C will not itself raise sea levels. But ice being held back by the shelf may flow faster into the sea and contribute to its global rise, reports the Washington Post.

    Scientists likewise fear that the loss of a huge chunk of ice will render the Larsen C ice shelf unstable and cause it to disintegrate, like Larsens A and B before it
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