30 - 31 May 2008 - ESA Records Second, Smaller Wilkins Ice Shelf Collapse - 160km2

[hatrack]

http://www.esa.int/images/asa_imm_geo_sub_L,0.gif

13 June 2008
Wilkins Ice Shelf has experienced further break-up with an area of about 160 km² breaking off from 30 May to 31 May 2008. ESA’s Envisat satellite captured the event – the first ever-documented episode to occur in winter.

Ed. - emphasis added.

Wilkins Ice Shelf, a broad plate of floating ice south of South America on the Antarctic Peninsula, is connected to two islands, Charcot and Latady. In February 2008, an area of about 400 km² broke off from the ice shelf, narrowing the connection down to a 6 km strip; this latest event in May has further reduced the strip to just 2.7 km.

This animation, comprised of images acquired by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) between 30 May and 9 June, highlights the rapidly dwindling strip of ice that is protecting thousands of kilometres of the ice shelf from further break-up.

According to Dr Matthias Braun from the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces, Bonn University, and Dr Angelika Humbert from the Institute of Geophysics, Münster University, who have been investigating the dynamics of Wilkins Ice Shelf for months, this break-up has not yet finished. "The remaining plate has an arched fracture at its narrowest position, making it very likely that the connection will break completely in the coming days," Braun and Humbert said.

EDIT

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMG58VG3HF_index_0.html

[ensho]

1. faster and faster

sigh

[hatrack]

2. Indeed! One might even call it . . .

"Faster Than Expected!!"

[XemaSab]

6. Yes

Yes, we might.

[phantom power]

3. K+R

[bluesmail]

4. K&R Eve f Destruction. n/t

[kgrandia]

5. Nice find

I am actually preparing a story on the Antarctic for tomorrow and have added this one in - thanks!

And what does "K&R" mean?

[greenman3610]

7. kicked and recommended

see the recommend link upper left of the original post



are you a journalist?

[bananas]

9. what k&r means:

k is for "kick"; everytime someone posts a reply to a thread, the thread is kicked to the top of the list of threads in that forum because they are sorted by time of most recent reply. That keeps the thread visible and active.
r is for "recommend", at the bottom of the original post in the thread is a link called "recommend", if 5 people recommend a thread, it goes onto the greatest page. sometimes it's called "vote for this thread" as in "vote for this thread to be on the greatest page". The greatest page is sorted by number of votes, so the more votes, the more visible it is.
You'll see "nt" or "eom" in some headers; that means "no text" or "end of message", meaning there is only a subject line, to let people know that there's no point in clicking on the message to read it.

Welcome to DU!

[greenman3610]

8. realclimate has an ice shelf post

http://www.realclimate.org/