"Was expected"
Antarctica: Iceberg the size of Vienna breaks off
Once again, a large iceberg has broken off the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The chunk measures 380 square kilometers, making it almost the size of Vienna.
It is already the third break-off in this area in the past four years. However, it is most likely not related to climate change, according to a statement from the British Antarctic Survey research station on Tuesday.
Rather, the calving had been expected since a 14-kilometer-long crack suddenly appeared in the ice shelf a few weeks ago. "This calving has been expected since the Halloween crack occurred eight years ago and reduces the total area of the ice shelf to its smallest extent since monitoring began," said researcher Oliver Marsh, who discovered the calving using GPS data. Calving is the term used to describe the break-off of larger ice masses from glaciers that end in the sea or inland waters. The break-off occurred early on Monday morning.
Ice blocks breaking off is a natural process
Ice shelves are sheets of ice floating on the sea that are fed by glaciers and are still connected to them. Although the breaking off of huge blocks of ice is a natural process, scientists are nevertheless alarmed: Over the past two decades, more than half of the twelve ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula have disintegrated or receded significantly.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Liebe Leserin, lieber Leser,
die Kommentarfunktion steht Ihnen ab 6 Uhr wieder wie gewohnt zur Verfügung.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
das krone.at-Team
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.