Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 09:05:31 +0100
From: Mark Jones <Jones_M-AT-netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: M-I: Antarctic Ice shelf disaster


This from today's Times (I posted earlier this year about the
failure of the Larsen "B" ice-shelf)

April 18 1998
                                 WORLD NEWS



                                          ©
     Cracking up: scientists examining a long fault in the ice
shelf in
     February. "The world is not in danger," one said yesterday.
"It's a
            bit like having ice in your gin and tonic"
                 Photograph: REUTER


   Antarctic unleashes a titanic
                  iceberg

         BY NICK NUTTALL, ENVIRONMENT
                CORRESPONDENT
  AN ICEBERG 25 miles long and three miles
  wide is floating in the Southern Ocean as an
  Antarctic ice shelf falls apart. The break-up was
  predicted by scientists at the British Antarctic
  Survey two months ago, but the speed of the
  change has taken experts by surprise. Some
  blame global warming.

  The climate of the Antarctic peninsula has
  become 2.5C warmer since the 1940s, causing
  the ice shelves to start melting. In February, the
  British team predicted that the Larsen B shelf,
  measuring 7,500 square miles, was nearing its
  stability limit and could begin to break up.

  Photographs taken from a polar-orbiting satellite
  operated by the US National Oceanic and
  Atmospheric Administration have now
  confirmed that a large portion of the shelf has
  vanished. A spokeswoman for the British
  Antarctic Survey, which based its predictions on
  computer models, said: "The Antarctic peninsula
  is experiencing a regional warming, but that's not
  happening in the rest of the continent, and
  no-one understands why.

  "It doesn't mean that we are immediately going
  to see sea levels rise. The world is not in any
  danger.



  "Ice shelves are floating - it's a bit like having ice
  in your gin and tonic. What would have an
  effect is if the ice sheets on land melted."
  However, the floating ice shelves protect the ice
  sheets by pinning them back. Once the ice
  shelves go, so could the larger masses of ground
  ice. "There could be a danger if the ice shelves
  disappear to the extent where they are no longer
  pinning back the ice sheets," she said. "But no
  one is suggesting that that is going to happen."

  Ted Scambos, from the National Snow and Ice
  Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, who has
  analysed the satellite images, said: "This may be
  the beginning of the end for the Larsen shelf.
  The warming trend appears to be related to a
  reduction in sea ice. The question is, what is
  causing the reduction? At this point we do not
  have enough evidence to find a smoking gun."

  He said about two thirds of the ice shelf was
  now threatening to break off. The other third
  nestled in bays that are expected to protect it.
  Larsen B is bigger than all the previous ice that
  has been lost from the Antarctic ice shelves in
  the past 20 years. Early in 1995, the Larsen A
  shelf, measuring 48 miles by 23 miles, collapsed
  completely during a single storm after years of
  gradual shrinking. The speed of its break-up was
  unprecedented and followed several of the
  region's warmest summers on record.

  Bill Budd, Professor of Meteorology at
  Australia's Antarctic Co-operative Research
  Centre, is convinced the ice shelf collapse is the
  result of global warming. He predicts significant
  degradation beginning in the next century and
  the near-total loss of the ice shelves within 500
  years. He said the ice-shelf collapse was
  consistent with "what we see from the effects of
  increased greenhouse gases, which cause
  warming".


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