Delaware-Sized Iceberg Could Raise Sea Levels Four Inches Due to Lengthening Larsen C Ice Shelf
The Larsen C Ice Shelf has caught the attention of scientists lately because it is increasing in size day by day. The rift between the Delaware-sized ice block and the glacier is growing longer and wider. Experts believe that it will just be about a few months when complete separation happens. Manmade climate change is the primary reason why the Larsen C Ice Shelf is growing wider and longer.
The Larsen C Ice Shelf is under close watch. According to the Business Insider, the 300 - foot wide, 70- mile long crack increasing and soon as large iceberg the size of Delaware will separate from the main glacier and setting off to sea. Ice shelves naturally become big icebergs as they chip off but the colossal block is quickly separating itself from the main peninsula. The report blames human-caused global warming.
The huge crack can be seen easily from space and experts say that since the time it appeared in 2011, it has lengthened by more than 18 miles in 2015. Readings from March 2016 showed that it has grown more than 14 miles longer.
NASA has also reported the rift along the Larsen C Ice Shelf. Its IceBridge mission in November 10, 2016 has photographed the rift as they surveyed polar ice from the air. A total of 8 consecutive deployments have been sent out and from these, scientists measured the Larsen C fracture to be 70 miles long, more than 300 feet wide and a third of a mile deep.
This crack completely cuts off the ice shelf from the continent but it does not go all the way across. But once this happens, an iceberg as large as Delaware will float to sea. Joe MacGregor, a glaciologist and geophysicist at NASA said that the ice block could float away in a month or maybe a year.
He said that once it does, it will be the third-largest in history. The block will "drift out into the Weddell Sea and then the Southern Ocean and be caught up in the broader clockwise ocean circulation and then melt." This could take at least several months because of its size. As the Larsen C collapses, all this ice could add 4 inches to sea levels as well.
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