![]() Scambos was placing instruments on the dwindling Larsen ice shelf in the peninsula to measure its disintegration in a scientific version of a deathwatch. Scientists have been tracking global warming's influence in Antarctica, a place more complicated than the Arctic. "It seems kind of weird, but weird things happen." ![]() "There are some crazy things going down in Antarctica," said Mark Serreze, director of the snow and ice data center, based in Boulder, Colo. They said it had probably occurred around Feb. The next day Australian researchers alerted the world to the iceberg crash with the Mertz Glacier on the other side of the continent. In a satellite phone interview this week from the western peninsula where he's working, Scambos predicted no major ice calving. It's hit pause on ice loss, said Ted Scambos, senior scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Remarkably, that peninsula, where last year one ice shelf was said to be hanging by a thread, has had an unusually cool summer. Concern has grown over warmer temperatures there and especially the region's shrinking peninsula, which sticks out into the water like a broken pinky finger. This happened as researchers have focused attention on the western side of Antactica, a continent about 1 1/2 times larger than the United States. The new chunk broke off a long tongue of ice that had been building for decades, but will unlikely cause future ice loss problems on the continent, scientists said. The new iceberg broke off from the cooler eastern end of Antarctica, the result of tidal forces that caused a longer but thinner iceberg that stretches for 60 miles to hammer it free. Then it suddenly plunged in 2016 and has stayed lower than average since.ĬNN’s Rachel Ramirez contributed to this report.WASHINGTON - With the dramatic crash of an iceberg against a glacier that dislodged a massive new chunk of ice, the mysterious continent of Antarctica once again did the unexpected.Ī big chunk of ice, slightly smaller than Oahu, broke off from a place it wasn't supposed to and in a way that wasn't quite anticipated, scientists reported Friday. Satellite data that stretches back to 1978 shows that the region was still producing record-high sea ice extent as recently as 20. “There’s a link between what’s going on in Antarctica and the general warming trend around the rest of the world, but it’s different from what we see in mountain glaciers and what we see in the Arctic,” Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, previously told CNN. Unlike the Arctic, where scientists say climate change is accelerating its impacts, Antarctica’s sea ice extent is highly variable. Recent data shows the sea ice has not since recovered, suggesting the continent could end the summer with a new record on the books for the second year in a row.Īntarctica has experienced a roller-coaster of sea ice extent over the past couple of decades, swinging wildly from record highs to record lows. Strong winds have also hastened the sea ice decline, they reported. ![]() Researchers at the data center say the low sea ice has been due in part to a large band of warmer-than-normal air temperatures, which climbed to 2 degrees Celsius above average over the Ross Sea in November and December. “While the decline in Antarctic sea ice extent is always steep at this time of year, it has been unusually rapid this year,” scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported in early January, “and at the end of December, Antarctic sea ice extent stood at the lowest in the 45-year satellite record.” The calving comes amid record-low sea ice extent in Antarctica, where it is summer. (Photo by Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images) Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket/Getty ImagesĦ5% of Antarctica's plants and animals could disappear, scientists say. ANTARCTICA - 0: Antarctica, Weddell Sea, Snow Hill Island, Emperor Penguin Colony Aptenodytes forsteri With Chicks On Fast Ice.
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