Antarctic ice shelf breaks up, threatening to submerge many cities

Antarctica's ice shelves are breaking apart from within, threatening to send sea levels soaring and submerge coastal cities.

A rift in the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, captured from above by a NASA satellite on November 4. Photo: NASA.

US scientists have collected evidence from satellite images that the West Antarctic Ice Shelf is disintegrating from the inside due to the impact of global warming, according to Science Alert. This crack has formed in the center of the ice shelf in the past few months, signaling a worrying trend. The study was published on November 28 in the journal Geophysical Research.

A team at Ohio University in the US is trying to predict how the breakup of this ice shelf will affect future global sea levels. This is important because half the world's population lives in coastal areas.

“We no longer have to ask if the Antarctic ice sheet is going to melt. The question is when,” said Ian Howat, a researcher at Ohio University. “The way the ice sheet is fracturing suggests that the mechanism of glacier melt is accelerating and that we are likely to see the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Shelf.”

Warm ocean water seeps into cracks between ice shelves, heating them from below, researchers say. Over time, this warm water melts more and more of the surrounding ice until a large crack forms.

"Rifts often form at the edges of ice shelves, where the ice is thin and brittle. However, the large break-off of Pine Island Glacier last year was caused by a fracture that started from within and spread out beyond the ice shelf's edge," Howat explains. "This means the core of the ice shelf is weakened for some reason, most likely a large crack underneath caused by warming oceans."

If all of Antarctica's ice melted into the ocean, sea levels would suddenly rise three meters globally, endangering many coastal cities such as London, UK or New York, US.

“We need to understand exactly how cracks form in ice shelves and their role in stabilizing the ice shelf. Monitoring disintegration from within is limited when observed from space, so we need to go there to collect data and observe in more detail,” Howat stressed.

According to VNE