CLIMATE CHANGE & SUSTAINABILITY FACTS
The Conger Ice Shelf in East Antarctica, thought to be stable and relatively unaffected by climate change, completely disintegrated in mid-March. Here's what the experts are saying about this event.
Just a few weeks after scientists logged the smallest sea ice extent for Antarctica in over 40 years, temperatures soared across the eastern part of the continent to roughly 30°C higher than normal. In the aftermath, satellite imagery captured something completely unexpected. The Conger Ice Shelf — a roughly 1,200 square kilometre sheet of glacial ice along the coast of East Antarctica — had shattered in just a matter of days.
Since the late 1970s, Conger has been on a slow decline. Pinned between the shores of the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica and Bowman Island, this ice shelf was once connected to the larger Shackleton Ice Shelf to the west. That connection broke down over 20 years ago, though.
Since then, the western edge has retreated further until, in 2020, the ice shelf covered an area of just over 1,600 square kilometres — close to three times the size of the city of Toronto. Over the past two years, another 400 square kilometres of ice was lost.
Then, on March 17, the US National Ice Center reported a new iceberg named C-38, measured at around 550 square kilometres, in the waters near Bowman Island. In that same press release, they said that the Conger Ice Shelf was gone.
"C-38 comprised virtually all that remained of the Conger ice shelf," they wrote.
The entire 1,200 sq km ice shelf had collapsed, leaving behind C-38 and a scattered collection of sea ice.
Comments
Post a Comment