DRAMATIC warming in parts of Antarctica is almost certainly to blame for the
disintegration of one of the continent鈥檚 largest ice shelves, say glaciologists.
Satellite images revealed last week that the continent鈥檚 northernmost
surviving shelf, the Larsen B, had lost a chunk measuring 200 square kilometres
during the southern summer. The loss of this chunk probably indicates 鈥渢he
beginning of the end鈥� for the disintegrating 16 000-square-kilometre shelf, says
Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Center in Boulder,
Colorado.
The Antarctic Peninsula, which pokes north into the Atlantic Ocean, has lost
some 8000 square kilometres from its ice shelves in the past 50 years, at a time
when local temperatures have risen by about 2.5 掳C.
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Ice shelves are floating appendages of the ice sheets covering Antarctica鈥檚
landmass, so they are naturally unstable. But the break-up of the Larsen B shows
again how vulnerable they are to global warming, say researchers.