Today, July 12, scientists said that the Antarctica ice shelf Larsen C broke off a giant iceberg with an area of over 2200 square miles and weighing a trillion tons. Its size is approximately the same as the state of Detroit!
Thus, this iceberg immediately became one of the largest in history, broke away from Antarctica.
«Its volume is two times higher than that of lake Erie, one of the Great lakes», — reported the experts of the MIDAS project, the research groups at the universities of Swansea and Aberystwyth, Wales, which is closely monitoring the situation from the satellite.
File: NASA/USGS Landsat
Iceberg how massive that if he melted right now, the global level of ocean water would rise by 3 millimeters. Therefore, scientists are concerned that this could have a destabilizing effect on the shelf, which is the largest in Antarctica.
«Iceberg is one of the largest registered, and its future behaviour is difficult to predict. He probably falls to pieces, some of which will remain in the region, and others may go to drift North into warmer waters,» says Adrian Luckman, senior researcher at MIDAS.
Photo: NASA/USGS Landsat
Concern of scientists is that the loss of glacier weighing a trillion tons can accelerate the movement of flow of ice on the remaining ice shelf Larsen C is really able to influence the increase of the sea level in this region by one centimeter. However, an even greater fear is the possible impending loss of ice shelves and glaciers located further South of Antarctica, where the potential increase in the sea level starts to be measured in feet.
