When an iceberg breaks from an ice shelf, an adjustment in the flow of ice into the ice shelf follows, which may influence the behavior of other cracks in the area and contribute to destabilization of the Brunt Ice Shelf over time. “This calving event has been expected and is part of the natural behavior of the Brunt Ice Shelf,” Glaciologist Dominic Hodgson said. Unlike the Larsen C Ice Shelf - which had extensive surface meltwater at the time of its collapse in 2017 - there is no evidence that climate change played a significant role in the changes with the Brunt Ice Shelf. When ice shelves like Larsen C are lost, it allows land-based ice to flow into the ocean more quickly, contributing to sea-level rise.įact check: Greenhouse gases are a driving factor in global warming, contrary to post A giant iceberg five times the size of Malta has broken away from Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf, satellite imagery shows. The 1,255-sq-mile (3,250-sq-km) Larsen B ice shelf was known to be melting fast but no one had predicted that it would take just one month for the 200-metre-thick behemoth to completely. GPS instruments surrounding the station take multiple daily measurements of the ice shelf and researchers' observations provide key information on atmospheric and space weather in a climate-sensitive zone. The BAS Halley Research Station, which relocated 14 miles inland of Chasm-1 a few years ago after it began to widen, was unaffected by the recent break off. With six Halley research stations on the Brunt Ice Shelf since 1956 – the calving event, although unexpected time-wise, has long been anticipated. Scientists at British Antarctic Survey (BAS) who monitor the behavior of the ice shelf - the part of a land-based ice sheet that floats on the ocean - first observed this crack extending in 2012 after having been dormant for some decades, according to the European Space Agency.
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