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Antarctic Ice Chunk Collapses

Posted Mar 25, 08 5:40 PM CDT in World,  Science & Health 

(Newser) – A mammoth chunk of ice has collapsed in Antarctica, leaving an ice shelf the size of Connecticut "hanging by a thread" and providing more evidence of global warming, scientists say. The sudden collapse of the 160-square-mile piece of ice threatens the Wilkins ice shelf, which has been in place for up to 1,500 years, the AP reports.

A scientist who flew over the shelf to photograph it reported that “chunks of ice the size of small houses look as though they’ve been thrown around like rubble,” the BBC notes. Scientists say the collapse won't affect sea levels, but one called such events "indicative of a tipping point or trigger in the climate system."

Sources Associated Press, BBC

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This satellite photo released by the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder shows the Wilkins Ice Shelf on March 6, 2008, as it began to break apart.   (AP Photo/ National Snow and Ice Data Center, NASA)
This image from March 6, 2008, released by the British Antarctic Survey, shows part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Southwest Antarctic Peninsula as it began to break apart.   (AP Photo/British Antarctic Survey, Jim Elliott)
This satellite photo shows a detail of the Wilkins Ice Shelf on March 6, 2008, on the Southwest Antarctic Peninsula as it began to break apart.   (AP Photo/ National Snow and Ice Data Center, NASA)
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