Giant cracks in the Antarctic ice shelf are about to

A huge crack on the ice shelf of Larsen C, Antarctica suddenly grew larger last month and is expected to "create" a record-breaking iceberg.

According to geologists belonging to the MIDAS project, this 20km long strip is separating from the westernmost point of the crack (extreme western than the ocean). The crack that has been steadily expanding in the last few months suddenly cracked to 18km in the second half of December 2016 will contribute to a 5,000-square-foot iceberg separated from the Larsen C ice shelf in this year.

Huge cracks observed in Larsen C, Antarctic ice shelves in November 2016.(Photo: NASA).

New glacier area occupies more than 10% Larsen C, the largest narrowing level on the front of this ice shelf has been recorded. This inevitable event will change the overview of the Antarctic peninsula landscape.

With almost twice the size of Rhode Island, the smallest state in the US, the newly created ice sheet will be one of the 10 largest ice sheets known by science. This 350m-thick ice sheet is expected to float in the sea at the western edge of Antarctica, floating there for many years and slowly breaking into smaller pieces.

The current position of the fracture at the Larsen C ice shelf from the beginning of this year.(Photo: MIDAS project).

Although the main actor is not climate change, but the researchers' warnings, the rest of the Larsen C ice shelf will be easily broken in the future because the ice birth hall is a natural process. periodicity.

The fragmented Larsen C ice shelf can cause serious instability with the rest of the ice sheet and the risk of breaking things over the next few years and decades. Then the global water level will increase by up to 10cm. In the past, the Antarctic ice shelf of Larsen B had disintegrated in 2002.