In keeping with our ongoing coverage of all things Antarctic, we ask this pressing question: is Antarctica falling apart? (Judging by our last few posts, it certainly seems wounded). From LiveScience:
Recent news of mammoth icebergs the size of small U.S. states
breaking off Antarctica may sound dire. But those events mostly
represent business as usual at the world’s southernmost continent,
scientists say.
A massive iceberg the size of the state of Rhode Island collided with Antarctica’s Mertz Glacier in mid-February, and caused a huge new iceberg
with an estimated mass of 860 billion metric tons to break off the
glacial tongue. Scientists note that such dramatic examples have not
been uncommon over the past decade.
“I need to stress that the event in the Mertz area, and indeed most of the iceberg calving
in Antarctica is a completely normal, expected activity for a stable
ice sheet,” said Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and
Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
So perhaps not. Icebergs do break off all the time, although this one is of an unusually large size. LiveScience goes on to note, however, that “a new report by
the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that every ice front in the
southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula — the coolest part of the
peninsula — has been retreating overall from 1947 to 2009. The most
dramatic changes have taken place since 1990.” You can read the whole article here.
