An enormous iceberg larger than Rhode Island has broken off of Antarctica’s Ronne Ice Shelf, and is now adrift in the Weddell Sea. First spotted by an ESA’s satellite, the state-sized chunk of ice measures in at 170 kilometers (105 miles) long by 25 kilometers (15 miles) wide, making itread more
Global warming may have pushed Greenland’s ice sheets past a tipping point, with the island having lost ice from its glaciers faster than snowfall could replenish them over the past two decades, according to a new study. Although this trend is expected to worsen as global temperatures increase, the researchersread more
A recently-published study from NASA has revealed that glaciers in West Antarctica’s Marguerite Bay have increased their flow rate, speeding up by up to 25 percent, an event that has accelerated ice loss in the region from 2 to 3 meters (7 to 10 feet) per year to 10 meters (33 feet). Prior to 2008, the flow rates of the four affected glaciers had been stable for two decades, but a major calving event in 1989 left the bay with little to no ice shelf, leaving them with only grounded ice on dry land — a precarious position for its potential to affect sea level rise.
read more
A Delaware-sized portion of Antarctica’s forth-largest ice shelf calved off, sometime between July 10th and 12th, following the rapid propagation of a 127 kilometer (79 mile) long crack running through the sheet. The resulting iceberg is over 200 meters (656 feet) thick, and covers roughly 6,000 square kilometers (Delaware itself is only 5,130 square kilometers (1,982 square miles). This will likely place it as the third-largest known iceberg in modern history.
read more