A giant iceberg the size of Delaware is poised to break away from its ice shelf. A rift between the iceberg and the Antarctic shelf has grown by 10.5 miles in the last six days, and is now only eight miles away from the edge of the ice.
United Kingdom-based research team Project MIDAS has been monitoring the ice shelf, designated as Larsen C, since 2014. The team has observed that the rift, which was previously running parallel to the edge of the ice shelf, has started to turn significantly toward the ice front. This is an indication "that the time of calving (breaking away) is probably very close, Project MIDAS lead researcher Professor Adrian Luckman told CNN."
The iceberg is predicted to be one of the ten largest break-offs ever recorded. "When it calves, the Larsen C Ice Shelf will lose more than 10% of its area to leave the ice front at its most retreated position ever recorded; this event will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula," Luckman said in a January 2017 report on the MIDAS website.
This could potentially trigger a wider breakup of the parent ice shelf, he added. This phenomenon was demonstrated in 2002 when neighboring ice shelf, Larsen B, disintegrated after a similar breakaway had occurred.
While ice calving, or the breaking of ice, is a natural process that is not driven by climate change, the size of these icebergs that are breaking off and the way they trigger entire ice shelves to disintegrate could have an effect on the rising sea levels. Even though the ice shelves and icebergs themselves do not affect sea levels, as they are floating in the ocean, their collapse can contribute to the destabilization of the continent's inland glaciers, causing them to flow readily into the ocean, thereby contributing to rising sea levels.
