A huge crack is spreading across the fourth largest Antarctic ice shelf – Larsen C – according to researchers from Project MIDAS, a student funded by the British Antarctic Survey, International Business Times reported. The Larsen A shelf collapsed in 1995 and Larsen B fell in 2002.
According to a report by Carbon Brief, a UK-based website covering the latest developments in climate science, the collapse could take place within anywhere between a few years and a century. Earlier this year, another study indicated a large rift in the Larsen-C ice shelf growing rapidly during 2014 – at one point beyond 20 km in just eight months, the Carbon Brief reported.
The Carbon Brief quoted professor David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey, who wasn't directly involved in the study, as saying, “We know that after Larsen-A and Larsen-B, a fairly large fraction of the total Antarctic contribution to sea level rise comes from those glaciers that once fed those ice shelves. Larsen-C is bigger and so the impact of losing Larsen-C would be a significant extra contribution to sea level rising."
An ice shelf is a formation that is created once a glacier reaches the coast and flows into the ocean. If the ocean is cold enough, a permanently floating shelf of ice is formed. The research has indicated that the thinning of the ice-shelf is two-pronged, from above and below. Initially four, the Larsen ice shelves are located at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Larsen-C, the largest section, and Larsen-D are all that's left. The peninsula is one of the fastest warming regions on the planet and temperatures have risen by 2.5 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years, the Carbon Brief reported.
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