Source: China Daily
04-29-2009 10:11
Special Report: Tech MaxBEIJING, April 29 -- A New York City-sized Antarctic ice shelf has broken into icebergs this month after the collapse of an ice bridge widely blamed on global warming, a scientist said Tuesday.
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| A handout satellite image taken April 27, 2009 of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica shows icebergs covering an area of 700 sq kms (270 sq miles) -- almost the size of New York City -- that have broken off this month after the collapse of an ancient ice bridge between Charcot Island and the shelf.(Reuters Photo) |
"The northern ice front of the Wilkins Ice Shelf has become unstable and the first icebergs have been released," Angelika Humbert, glaciologist at the University of Muenster in Germany, said of European Space Agency satellite images of the shelf.
Humbert told Reuters about 700 sq km (270.3 sq mile) of ice -- bigger than Singapore or Bahrain and almost the size of New York City -- has broken off the Wilkins this month and shattered into a mass of icebergs.
She said 370 sq kms of ice had cracked up in recent days from the Shelf, the latest of about 10 shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula to retreat in a trend linked by the U.N. Climate Panel to global warming.
The new icebergs added to 330 sq kms of ice that broke up earlier this month with the shattering of an ice bridge apparently pinning the Wilkins in place between Charcot island and the Antarctic Peninsula.
