They are set to be collected by aircraft around February 6, according to the BAS, a world leader in environmental research in the region. “Our science and operational teams continue to monitor the ice shelf in real-time to ensure it is safe, and to maintain the delivery of the science we undertake at Halley,” added Hodgson. They maintain the power supplies and facilities that keep scientific experiments operating remotely through the winter, when it is dark for 24 hours and the temperature falls below minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit). Since then, staff have been deployed only during the Antarctic summer between November and March, with 21 researchers currently on-site. The mobile research base was relocated to the station about 20km (12.4 miles) further inland in 2016 as cracks in the ice threatened to cut it off. The iceberg, which has yet to be named by the US National Ice Center, is now expected to drift off with the current along the Antarctic coast like previous massive icebergs.īritain’s Halley VI Research Station monitors the state of the vast floating ice shelf daily but is unaffected by the latest rupture. In the years since, the gap widened until the chunk of ice broke away.Ī similar spectacular separation, involving a 1,270sq km (490 square miles) iceberg, occurred about a year ago. The fissure in the ice sheet, which researchers named Chasm-1, was discovered years ago. Scientists refer to “calving” when chunks of ice break off at the terminus, or end, of a glacier. “This calving event has been expected and is part of the natural behaviour of the Brunt Ice Shelf,” said BAS glaciologist Dominic Hodgson. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said the formation of the new iceberg was not due to climate change – which is accelerating the loss of sea ice in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica – but to a natural process called “calving”. The iceberg, measuring 1,550sq km (598 square miles), detached from the 150-metre (492-foot)-thick Brunt Ice Shelf a decade after scientists first spotted massive cracks in the shelf. Currents will take it on a north-northeast arc, pushing it toward the South Georgia and Sandwich Islands, just as others before it.A huge iceberg nearly the size of Greater London has broken off the Antarctic ice shelf near a research station, the second such split in two years, researchers said. The massive iceberg that's now floating along in the Southern Ocean, off the coast of Antarctica, will likely break up over time, Shuman said. "But at the moment, we don't think it'll have a dramatic impact on this ice in the Antarctic Peninsula," Shuman said. If that happens, there would be a rise in sea levels. And if they see the shelf pulling away from the ice that's holding it where it is, that could add to the chance of the Larsen C collapsing entirely. However, if they see the region's slow-moving glaciers start to speed up, things could change in years to come. Yes, the Larsen C will have retreated farther west than we've ever known it to have retreated before," Shuman said. "On the other hand, it has dropped large before."Īs for whether this could result in more inland ice sheets making their way to the ocean, ultimately leading to ocean rise, Shuman said that should remain stable right now, because so much of the ice shelf is left. "Obviously we have been seeing climate change impacts, and it's possible that this is going to put the ice shelf in a much more vulnerable position."Īntarctica is home to several ice shelves, with some of the biggest highlighted here. "There have been large increases in temperature in this region over the last half-century or so," said Martin O'Leary, a research scientist and glaciologist at Swansea University. The huge iceberg - which measures more than 1,550 square kilometres - broke away from the 150 metre. Still, this calving event occurred in an area of the Antarctic that has experienced a warming trend since the 1950s. A vast iceberg equivalent to the size of Greater London has broken off the Antarctic ice shelf. Well, that's an awful lot that's gone missing.' On the other hand, there have been previous large bergs from this area." "This is a worrisome sign for the Larsen C: you can't lose 12 or 13 per cent of your area from an ice shelf and not think, 'Hmm. "We just can't make a clear connection to this being driven by climate change at this time," Shuman said. Antarctic ice melt tied to El Nino warming.Climate change is making Antarctica greener.And while there is a lot of talk about how climate change is affecting the poles, the calving, or breaking off, of parts of ice shelves can't be directly linked to warming temperatures, as it's something that's been seen throughout recorded history.
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