Delaware-Size Iceberg Is About to Break Off from Antarctica

LiveScience.com ^ | January 6, 2017 | Laura Geggel

[tired&retired]

An icy thread measuring a mere 12 miles (20 kilometers) long is all that's anchoring a massive iceberg the size of Delaware to its home in West Antarctica, climate scientists report.

If the iceberg breaks away — an event known as calving — the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica will lose more than 10 percent of its area, which amounts to about 2,000 square miles (5,000 square km), according to Project MIDAS, an Antarctic research project based in the United Kingdom.

MIDAS researchers noticed the rift in 2014, and have used satellite and other data to monitor it ever since. The rift made headlines late last year when NASA's IceBridge mission snapped a photo showing the eerily immense crack, which measured 70 miles (112 km) long, more than 300 feet (91 meters) wide and about one-third of a mile (0.5 km) deep as of Nov. 10, 2016.

[tired&retired]

However, the rift has worsened since November, Project MIDAS announced yesterday (Jan. 5).

"After a few months of steady, incremental advance since the last event, the rift grew suddenly by a further 18 km [11 miles] during the second half of December 2016," MIDAS researchers wrote in a blog post. "Only a final 20 km of ice now connects an iceberg one quarter the size of Wales to its parent ice shelf."

Once it breaks off, the iceberg isn't expected to raise sea levels, Luckman said. But if the shelf continues to fall apart, then the glaciers that flow off the land might have an impact on sea levels, he told the BCC.

Estimates show that if all of the ice held back by the Larsen C Ice Shelf were to enter the sea, global oceans could rise by 4 inches (10 centimeters), the BBC reported.

[BenLurkin]

Seems like this thing has been threatening to break off for about ten years now.

[tired&retired]

A huge crack can be seen in the Antarctic Peninsula's Larsen C ice shelf in this aerial image snapped on Nov. 10, 2016, as part of NASA's IceBridge mission.

[BipolarBob]

Evacuate Miami! Evacuate New York! Everyone inland. It will be cataclysmic! OR it will be the same ol’ Climate Change scam they have been trying to perpetrate on us ever since they $melled money.

[loucon]

Cool!

[tired&retired]

This will be the third one to break off. This is Larson C. Larson A & B already went.

Per the article:

“It’s possible that Larsen C will follow in the same footsteps as Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 after a similar rifting event, according the Project MIDAS blog. The Larsen A Ice Shelf disintegrated in 1995.”

[tired&retired]

Estimates show that if all of the ice held back by the Larsen C Ice Shelf were to enter the sea, global oceans could rise by 4 inches (10 centimeters), the BBC reported.

[tired&retired]

BipolarBob, you must have convinced your wife that 4 inches is much bigger than reality..

[jmacusa]

Yes, evacuate, evacuate! Everybody head for the hills! Doom! Danger Will Robinson!!!

[ETL]

Has-to be the result of “man-made global warming”! Has to be.

[PGR88]

i appreciate the warning.

I will now stay clear of the ocean around Antarctica, and tell my family to do the same.

[lurk]

When it breaks off, nothing will happen.

[hal ogen]

Who cares (except maybe for some weirdo penguins)?

[hal ogen]

Who cares (except maybe for some weirdo penguins)?

[DouglasKC]

If there are icebergs calving it means that the ice pack is getting bigger.

[Seaplaner]

Calving is different from melting.

One most strongly suspects that calving can happen as a consequence of an ice shelf growing. (Perhaps an iceshelfologist can confirm this suspicion?

.

[PROCON]

Great, now this natural occurrence will be the "Proof" the warmunists needed to "prove" their bogus "theory".

And they'll be out front and loud about it:

"SEE....SEE....we told you so!"

*Groan*

[b4its2late]

Cool. (Literally)

[PROCON]

(except maybe for some weirdo penguins)?

[BenLurkin]

Ah, thank you.