Originally published August 9 2005
Collapse of Antarctic ice shelf could have global effects
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The unprecedented collapse of an ice-shelf in Antarctica could indirectly lead to a significant rise in global sea levels, researchers say.
The collapse of a huge ice shelf in Antarctica in 2002 has no precedent in the past 11 000 years, according to a study to be published on Thursday that points the finger at global warming.
Measuring about 3 250 square kilometres in area and 220m thick, the Larsen B iceshelf broke away from the eastern Antarctic Peninsula in 2002, eventually disintegrating into giant icebergs.
By chance, a United States-led team of geologists had gathered a rich harvest of data around the iceshelf just before the spectacular collapse, including six cores that had been drilled into marine sediment.
The cores contain the remains of plankton and algae imbedded in layers of minerals, and their radiocarbon and oxygen isotopes provide clues about ice cover and climate change over the millennia.
Its coup de grace came from a recent but decades-long rise in air temperature, they say.
"The modern collapse of the LIS-B [Larsen B iceshelf] is a unique event within the Holocene," they write.
The Holocene is the period of relatively balmy weather that followed the last Ice Age.
Over the past half century, temperatures in the peninsula have risen by around 2C.
In recent years, the peninsula has lost ice shelves totalling more than 12 500 sq km, equivalent to four times the area of Luxembourg.
Of the 244 glaciers that drain inland ice and feed these shelves, 87% have fallen back since the mid-1950s, according to a British study published in April.
Global warming, also called the greenhouse effect, is caused by carbon gases mostly discharged by burning oil, gas and coal, that trap the Sun's heat.
But Earth's climate also goes through natural oscillations of warming and cooling, resulting in Ice Ages and the milder interglacial periods in-between.
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