Reuters:
An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has broken off from a glacier in Antarctica after being rammed by another giant iceberg, scientists said on Friday, in an event that could affect ocean circulation patterns.
The 2,500 sq km (965 sq mile) iceberg broke off earlier this month from the Mertz Glacier's 160 km (100 miles) floating tongue of ice that sticks out into the Southern Ocean.
The collision has since halved the size of the tongue that drains ice from the vast East Antarctic ice sheet.
"The calving itself hasn't been directly linked to climate change but it is related to the natural processes occurring on the ice sheet," said Rob Massom, a senior scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center in Hobart, Tasmania.
Both organizations, along with French scientists, have been studying existing giant cracks in the ice tongue and monitored the bumper-car-like collision by the second iceberg, B-9B.
This 97 km long slab of ice is a remnant of an iceberg of more than 5,000 sq km that broke off, or calved, in 1987, making it one of the largest icebergs ever recorded in Antarctica.
The Mertz glacier iceberg is among the largest recorded for several years. In 2002, a iceberg about 200 km long broke off from Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf. In 2007, a iceberg roughly the size of Singapore broke off from the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica.
Whole story HERE.
Dealing with stress hasn't been my friend this week. I am tired, running on empty and need some sustained sunshine to cheer me up.
And so it goes.
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Everywhere I went yesterday I was running into mindless strangers who wanted me to know that our *local* snow/wind storm and winter was proof positive that "global warming" was a crock.
ReplyDeleteLem: Ah, the Faux Noise crowd. They are a true blessing, aren't they? Ask them to explain the unusually warm temps in Vancouver during the Olympics and their faces freeze.
ReplyDelete