The Arctic ice is not the only melted as a result of global warming.The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado (USA) announced Tuesday that a piece of the Antarctic ice equivalent to almost four times the size of the city of Paris began to disintegrate.A phenomenon which could indirectly speed up the rise in ocean levels.
An iceberg 25 km
According to satellite imagery, the disintegration is already on a piece of ice of 414 km2 part of the Wilkins shelf and began on February 28 by the sudden stall of an iceberg of 25.5 km long and 2.4 km wide on the south-west.This has triggered the disintegration of a block of 569 km2 Shelf Wilkins, 414 km2 of which have already disappeared indicates the communique of NSIDC.This plateau, which covers an area of 12,950 km2, is currently supported by a narrow strip of ice 5.6 kilometers between two islands.
A shelf disintegrated
"If the ice continues to fall, this band of ice could disintegrate and then probably we would lose half of the ice in this region over the next few years," said Ted Scambos, the lead researcher of NSIDC.
Dike broken
The melting of sea ice has no direct effect on the overall level of the oceans-not more than an icicle in the process of merging into a glass of whisky-but the disappearance of the Antarctic ice could, however, accelerate mounted water."The ice does not contribute itself to rising sea levels because it floats on the sea and thus displaces a volume of water.But when the ice attached to the continent disintegrates, the continental ice rushes faster in the ocean, which leads to rising waters, "says Professor Neil Glasser.The researcher from the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University Aberystwyth (UK) has studied including the breakup of the Larsen B shelf in 2002.
The sea ice in Antarctica tatters
In recent years, the ice near the Antarctic Peninsula has experienced a rapid disintegration. In 1995, the Larsen A Shelf, 75 km long and 37 km wide, has stalled then fragmented into icebergs in the Weddell Sea.On March 19, 2002, a NASA satellite observed the collapse of Larsen B, with a surface area of 3,850 km2 and 200 meters high, which contained 720 billion tons of ice.In all, over 13,000 km2 of ice have been lost in fifty years.