Antarctica lost bigger ice mass than Singapore

An area of ​​about 700 square kilometers in the southernmost part of the earth has crumbled into ice sheets.

Photos taken by satellites show that the ice block broke into thousands of small blocks.Photo: Reuters.

Angelika Humbert, an ice expert at Muenster University (Germany), said the European Space Agency's satellite detected the ice mass disappearance at Wilkins ice shelf (north of Antarctica). It is larger than Singapore, Bahrain and nearly the size of New York City (USA). It has turned into thousands of icebergs.

This event happened after a giant ice bridge in Antarctica collapsed due to global warming. This is also the tenth block of ice on the south pole of the earth crumbling, in which 9 previous blocks disappeared within 50 years. They float on the ocean or lie adjacent to the coast.

According to Humbert, Wilkins ice shelf may have lost 800-3,000 square kilometers of ice after the giant bridge collapsed. So far, this ice shelf - covering an area of ​​16,000 square kilometers - has lost about a third of its area in the past few decades. The thickness of the ice is so great that it takes several hundred years to form.

The temperature in the Antarctic Peninsula has increased by 3 degrees Celsius in the 21st century due to the greenhouse effect. The disintegration of the ice blocks does not increase sea level because they turn into small ice floats floating on the water. However, scientists fear that their disappearance will make land ice layers move faster, increasing the amount of water flowing into the ocean.