Antarctic Ice Shelf, Almost as Big as Los Angeles, Completely Collapses – CNET

If youve been keeping an eye on the icy southern end of the Earth recently, youre most likely aware that Antarctica has actually recently experienced some abnormally severe heat.” We need to much better comprehend how the warm duration has influenced melt along this entire sector of East Antarctica,” Mackintosh said.Antarctic research has mainly focused on West Antarctica, since its much more accessible and has actually been the focus of well-resourced expeditions from the US and British Antarctic divisions. The severe warming throughout March has thrust East Antarctica into the spotlight and revealed a need to more completely comprehend the area and its reaction to human-induced environment change.

Satellite images has actually recorded the significant end of a big ice shelf in East Antarctica. The Conger ice shelf, which sits off the East Antarctic coast surrounding to the much bigger Shackleton ice rack, completely collapsed on March 15. The shelf was around 1,200 square kilometers, only a little smaller than Los Angeles and about a third of the size of the Larsen B ice shelf, which broke down in 2002. Catherine Walker, an Earth and planetary scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and NASA, tweeted satellite imagery obtained by the Landsat and MODIS satellites on Thursday. The GIF shared by Walker shows the shelf gradually recede leading up to March 14 and then the next image, from March 16, shows it has actually completely fractured.

The Shackleton Ice Shelf in 2009. Conger became part of the rack till it broke down in March 2022..
NASA MODIS.

” The Conger ice rack was there and after that unexpectedly it was gone,” stated Andrew Mackintosh, an ice sheet specialist and head of the school of Earth, atmosphere and the environment at Monash University in Australia. Ice sheets are crucial to keeping back the flow of ice on the continent into the sea. “If they collapse, then ice circulation from inland leads and accelerates to sea level rise,” he said..

The Conger ice shelf, which sits off the East Antarctic coast surrounding to the much bigger Shackleton ice rack, totally collapsed on March 15. The rack was around 1,200 square kilometers, only a little smaller than Los Angeles and about a third of the size of the Larsen B ice rack, which broke down in 2002. Ice sheets are important to holding back the circulation of ice on the continent into the sea. The severe warming throughout March has thrust East Antarctica into the spotlight and exposed a need to more thoroughly comprehend the region and its response to human-induced environment change.

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