Brussels, Europe Brief News – Antarctic Ice Shelf on the east side has disintegrated this month. As a result of the period of extreme heat, the ice shelf has melted down. Satellite images have revealed that the 1,200 square-kilometer Conger Ice Shelf has collapsed completely on March 15.
The ice shelf has been at the tipping point and the heatwave became the final reason for the disintegration of the ice shelf. NASA Earth and Planetary Scientist Catherine Colello Walker shared images of white ice crumbling over the dark ocean.
Ice shelves that were the permanent floating sheets were attached to the land. They took thousands of years to form and were holding back snow and ice. The ice could have otherwise flown into the ocean, and this caused the seas to rise.
The March heatwave and the temperature rise hit 70 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). In East Antarctica, the high atmospheric river phenomenon disintegrated the ice shelf. The continent has not seen such high temperature in a long time.
Antarctic Ice shelf crumbles after heatwave
The climate of the area has been incredibly variable. It was twice as extreme of a warming event and crumbled the ice shelf. Temperatures in the region are around-60 degrees Fahrenheit (-51 degrees Celsius) but they peaked around 10 degrees (-12 Celsius) earlier this month. The temperature has gone back to normal, Neff said.
The ice shelf is surrounded by vast oceans and buffered by winds. Warm-air intrusions and the frozen continent have been responding slowly to climate change as compared to the rest of the world. East Antarctica in some regions has been affected and the whole lost an average of 149 billion of ice per year. This ice shelf was hanging during the warm coastal climate. It was also thinning and got damaged in the last few decades.
The Conger shelf collapsed long before the heatwave. This demise shows that the Antarctic system has gotten a lot more sensitive than before and it has been getting affected by the atmospheric changes. It might not be a cause for concern though.
The disintegration of the Antarctic ice shelf and the glaciers to flow faster. This will also unload a little more ice into the sea. Judging by the Antarctic standards the sea level will increase a lot. The ice shelf crumbling has been good news for all the residents of the continent.
