Ice bridge supporting Wilkins ice shelf shatters
April 5th, 2009 by Jim JustThe ice bridge supporting the Wilkins ice shelf shattered yesterday (Saturday, April 4).
The last photo on the European Space Agency’s animated “webcam from space” shows the disintegrating ice.
David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, told Reuters:
It’s amazing how the ice has ruptured. Two days ago it was intact. We’ve waited a long time to see this.
My feeling is that we will lose more of the ice, but there will be a remnant to the south.
We believe the warming on the Antarctic Peninsula is related to global climate change, though the links are not entirely clear.
Temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula, which snakes up toward South America, have risen by up to about 3 Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) in the past 50 years, the fastest rate of warming in the Southern Hemisphere.
Nine other shelves have receded or collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in the past 50 years, often abruptly like the Larsen A in 1995 or the Larsen B in 2002 further north.
The loss of the ice bridge, which was almost 100 km wide in 1950 and had been in place for hundreds of years at least, could allow ocean currents to wash away more of the Wilkins.
Great timing. On Monday the United States will be hosting a “polar conference” with representatives of 47 of the world’s governments. Climate change is to be a major focus of the talks, which are preparatory to the global talks in Copenhagen scheduled for December.