The disintegration of the huge Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica was an unprecedented event in the past 10,000 years of geological history, a study has found. Research by scientists from Hamilton College in New York, based on the scrutiny of six ice cores from the vicinity of the ice shelf, found that a collapse of this size had not happened during the period since the end of the last Ice Age. The piece of ice which sheered away from Larsen B into the sea in 2002 was roughly the size of Luxembourg. The study, published in the journal Nature, shows that the ice shelf had been thinning over the millennia but went through a more rapid loss in recent decades, probably due to global warming. In March 2002, scientists announced the Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula had entered a phase of rapid break-up with more than 50 billion tons of ice spilling into the Weddell Sea to form thousands of massive icebergs. It had been known for many years that the ice shelf was thinning and in retreat but the speed of its final collapse astonished scientists. It took just 35 days for the Larsen B ice shelf to fall away completely after a Nasa satellite detected the first ruptures in the 1,255 square miles of ice at the end of January 2002.

Although the disintegration of ice shelves does not itself cause sea levels to rise (because they are already floating), their loss is thought to speed up the flow of ice from ice sheets on land, causing sea levels to rise. Larsen B's smaller neighbour, Larsen A, broke off in 1995 and other much bigger ice shelves nearby, such as the Ross and Ronne, are also considered to be at risk of disintegrating, according to studies by the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. Researchers have measured a 2.5C increase in average temperatures in the Antarctic peninsula over the past 50 years and many scientists believe there is little doubt that this rise can be linked to global warming and climate change exacerbated by man-made pollution.

View: Full Article | Source: NZ Herald

Can anyonee say...'The Day After Tomorrow'? What was that I was saying earlier this year about a tsunami hitting Sydney? Apparently I've discovered, Sydney's due for one, nothing like an ice shelf break up to speed it up a bit.

i'll say the day after tomorrow in the movie a large blizzard storm strike the north hemisphere but this is different if it happen a large tidal wave cause by ice shelf collaspe will hit the south hemisphere

Damn that thing is huge, you guys think this will actually effect the world at the moment?