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Topic: Ice shelf

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Larsen Ice Shelf

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Ross Ice Shelf

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	Ice shelf - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-16)
		An ice shelf is a thick, floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface, typically in Antarctica or Greenland.
		The boundary between floating ice shelf and the grounded (resting on bedrock) ice that feeds it is called the grounding line.
		The primary mechanism of mass loss from ice shelves is iceberg calving, in which a chunk of ice breaks off from the seaward front of the shelf.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ice_shelf (410 words)

	Biosphere and Ice Shelf Issues (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-16)
		The small thin ice shelves that fringe the Antarctic Peninsula are sustained primarily by new snow accumulation; larger ice shelves such as the Ross Ice Shelf are sustained mainly by flow from inland ice sheets.
		Other breakup events of the Larsen Ice Shelf include the disintegration of the Larsen A section in 1995 reducing the shelf by 770 square miles, and the collapse of the Larsen B and Wilkins Ice Shelves between March 1998 and March 1999 reducing the shelves by 1150 square miles.
		Researchers propose that the ice shelf disintegration is caused by increased melt water ponds on the ice shelf surface due to the extended melt seasons in summer, as the temperatures increased.
	distance.una.edu /ess/_event_f02/000000bb.htm (2568 words)

	Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses, March 2002
		Based on studies of ice flow and sediment thickness beneath the ice shelf, scientists believe that it existed for at least 400 years prior to this event, and likely existed since the end of the last major glaciation 12,000 years ago (see more about Dr. Eugene Domack's research).
		One idea is that meltwater seeping between ice crystals and warming of the shelf as a whole, reduces the fracture toughness of the ice so that the shelf shatters under the same stresses imposed by local geography and the flow it used to tolerate.
		Once their ice shelves are removed, the glaciers increase in speed due to meltwater percolation and/or a reduction of braking forces, and they may begin to dump more ice into the ocean than they gather as snow in their catchments.
	nsidc.org /iceshelves/larsenb2002 (1468 words)

	Antarctic Ice Shelves
		Breakup of the Larsen B Ice Shelf: 15 February 1998 - 18 March 1999: Two ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula known as the Larsen B and Wilkins are in "full retreat" and have lost nearly 3,000 square kilometers of their total area in the last year.
		Breakup of Larsen B Ice Shelf May Be Underway: The Larsen B Ice Shelf appears to have begun breaking up, receding past its historical minimum extent, and past the point where recent modeling suggests it can maintain a stable ice front.
		Ice Shelf Feels the Heat: "Warming waters may doom the Antarctic Peninsula's Larsen Ice Shelf, and other Antarctic ice shelves could be more endangered than had been thought, according to a paper published in the 31 October issue of Science." NSIDC researcher Ted Scambos is quoted in the paper.
	nsidc.org /iceshelves (536 words)

	CNN - Large Antarctic ice shelf disintegrating - April 17, 1998
		Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves have been in rapid retreat for the last few decades, apparently in response to a regional climate warming of 4.5 degrees F since the 1940s.
		Currently the Larsen B is the northernmost ice shelf in Antarctica, and therefore "on the front line of the warming trend," said Scambos.
		Ice shelves, thick plates of floating ice surrounding portions of Greenland and Antarctica, are fed by glaciers and snowfall.
	cnn.com /EARTH/9804/17/antarctica.shelf (608 words)

	Scott Polar Research Institute » Larsen Ice Shelf (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-16)
		The flight path crossed the ice shelf, starting north-west of the Mobiloil Inlet, and shows the presence of heavy crevasse rifting close to the ice shelf margins where outlet glaciers flow into the ice shelf.
		Remnant icebergs from the disintegrated Larsen-B Ice Shelf floating in calm waters.The photograph was taken shortly after the ice shelf collapsed rapidly in February 2002 (Photo: Colm Ó Cofaigh).
		The 1990 boundaries of the Larsen-A, -B and —C ice shelf sections are highlighted with blue, green and red borders.
	www.spri.cam.ac.uk /research/projects/larseniceshelf (646 words)

	Scientists detect melting of Antarctic Ice Shelf
		Thinning of the Larsen Ice Shelf - vast sections of which collapsed catastrophically during the 1990s - was discovered by scientists at the University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Bristol and the Instituto Antörtico Argentino.
		The floating Larsen Ice Shelf fringes the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula at the northernmost reaches of the continent, and for several decades its gradually warming climate and episodes of wholesale ice shelf disintegration have been the subject of much scientific debate.
		The Larsen Ice Shelf melting is releasing vast quantities of ice-cold water into the worlds oceans - equivalent to a staggering eight times the River Thames yearly outflow - creating a disturbance that may have wider implications for patterns of global ocean circulation.
	www.brightsurf.com /news/oct_03/NERC_news_103003.php (731 words)

	Global warming and sea levels
		Because floating ice displaces the same volume of water as melted ice, iceberg that formed from floating ice on Antarctica's vast ice shelves add no volume to the ocean.
		And as it turns out, the line may not move much because the flow of the ice streams seems to be restrained by friction against rocks at the bottom and sides rather than the ice shelf.
		The streams, says Bentley, "don't particularly care whether there is an ice shelf there or not." So if the ice shelf melts, the flow of the streams should not change appreciably.
	whyfiles.org /091beach/5.html (1211 words)

	AWI: BRIOS - Ice Shelf Cavities
		Ice shelves represent the floating extensions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, covering nearly 44% of the surrounding continental shelf.
		The former contributes ~1/3 to the total mass loss of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, the latter might cause the appearance of rarely sighted green icebergs in the Southern Ocean.
		The modified water masses emerge as plumes from the ice shelf cavities and contribute to deep and bottom water formation along the continental slope; the processes controlling the formation are still subject to intense field experiments and numerical studies.
	www.awi-bremerhaven.de /Climate/cavities.html (529 words)

	Fact Sheet: Ice Shelves (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-16)
		The result is a large, floating shelf of ice affixed to the continent.
		During normal years, the total mass of calvings is an extremely small percentage of the ice cap, and the ice lost through calving equals the mass of snowfall on the continent.
		Three more shelves, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the University of Colorado, have receded past a "point of no return." These three are the Larsen B, the Wilkins, and the George VI Ice Shelves.
	www.asoc.org /general/iceshelve.htm (995 words)

	USATODAY.com - Ice shelf breakup challenges researchers (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-16)
		The collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf wasn't a complete surprise; scientists have long been aware that things are stirring on the Antarctic Peninsula and the Hamilton College conference was originally scheduled for mid September last year.
		Researchers at the conference generally agreed that the final straw for the Larsen B Ice Shelf was unusually warm temperatures during the December 2001 though the February 2002 Antarctic summer.
		While collapse of ice sheets such as Larsen B and melting icebergs do not raise sea levels, the ultimate fear is that the ice sitting on land in Antarctica will melt, which would raise global sea levels by 200 feet.
	www.usatoday.com /weather/resources/coldscience/2004-05-26-peninsula-conf_x.htm (1475 words)

	Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses: Global Warming Blamed
		On its website (www.nsidc.org) the University of Colorado-based center said a major part of the Larsen B ice shelf, believed to have been there for up to 12,000 years, had collapsed over a 35-day period.
		An Antarctic ice shelf the size of a small country has disintegrated under the impact of global warming, scientists said March 19, 2002.
		An NSIDC researcher Ted Scambos said the ice disintegrates because of the presence of ponded melt water on the surface in late summer as the climate has warmed in the area.
	www.commondreams.org /headlines02/0319-01.htm (713 words)

	Ronne ice shelf
		Two ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula known as the Larsen B and Wilkins are in "full retreat" and have lost nearly 3,000 square kilometers of their total area in the last year, say scientists in Colorado and the United Kingdom.
		Ice shelves are floating plates of ice that are still attached to continents and which form when large glaciers flow toward the ocean in polar areas.
		Ice shelves are massive, floating sheets of snow and frozen water that encircle the Antarctic mainland.
	www.xs4all.nl /~carlkop/ronne.html (1113 words)

	NASA Instrument Captures Early Antarctic Ice Shelf Melting
		This huge, nearly 200 meter (656 foot) thick plate of glacier-fed floating ice, which in the late 1980s was about as large as Indiana, experienced dramatic disintegration events beginning in 1995 that have reduced its area by nearly 10 percent, or more than two trillion tons of ice.
		Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses In Largest Event Of Last 30 Years (March 19, 2002) -- Recent satellite imagery analyzed at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder has revealed that the northern section of the Larsen B ice shelf, a large floating...
		Ice Shelf Disintegration Threatens Environment, Queen's Study (August 9, 2005) -- The spectacular disintegration of Antarctica's "Larsen-B" Ice Shelf was unprecedented since the last ice age, according to a recent study published in Nature.
	www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2003/01/030115070058.htm (818 words)

	Disintegration of an Antarctic ice shelf
		Thus weakened, the ice shelf is vulnerable to rapid break-up.
		Ice shelves are platforms of ice that go afloat where mountain glaciers and ice sheets flow from the land onto the ocean.
		The speed of the ice depends on shelf thickness and temperature, and the geometry of the bay walls and islands past which it flows.
	web.pdx.edu /%7Echulbe/science/Larsen/larsen2002.html (1348 words)

	WaterWorks : Ice Shelf (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-16)
		Ice Shelf creates a flat area around the shoreline and over any areas of the underwater terrain that rise to within the shelf limit.
		Ice Shelf is still a bit of a novelty plugin at the moment, it isn't really as practical as Euphotica or Sorta Surf, but it can still give an interesting effect.
		Ice Shelf flattens out areas of the water that the ice covers, so you if you want to preserve this, you shouldn't place any other plugins that might modify the geometry of the water over the top, in other words, below it on the list.
	homepages.ihug.co.nz /~jomeder/WaterWorks/iceShelf.html (980 words)

	Antarctic ice shelf disintegrating
		He and his colleagues say the abrupt breakup of the huge ice shelf known as Larsen B on the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula surprised them with its speed.
		The next year, parts of the Larsen B ice shelf and the Wilkins shelf lost a total of more than 1,100 square miles, and Scambos warned that the two shelves were "in full retreat" that year.
		The Ross Ice Shelf itself is the main outlet for the huge West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which encompasses several large glaciers, Scambos noted -- and if those those glaciers were ever to melt into the ocean, they would add the equivalent of 15 feet of sea level to the world's waters.
	www.sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/03/20/MN53407.DTL (710 words)

	EO News: Warmer Summers Trigger Ice Shelf Collapse - January 16, 2001
		Using satellite images of tell-tale melt water on the ice surface and a sophisticated computer simulation of the motions and forces within an ice shelf, the scientists demonstrated that added pressure from surface water filling crevasses can crack the ice entirely through.
		The team of scientists — Ted Scambos and Jennifer Bohlander of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Mark Fahnestock of the University of Maryland, and Hulbe — focused on the Larsen Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula, which experienced major retreats in 1995 and 1998.
		Analyzing images of the Larsen Ice Shelf over the past 20 years, Fahnestock found that the years with the longest duration of surface melt water were also the years of major shelf breakup events.
	earthobservatory.nasa.gov /Newsroom/NasaNews/2001/200101164406.html (732 words)

	Beneath Ice Shelf's Remains, Life Blossoms
		The bacteria under the Larsen B ice shelf evolved in far colder conditions than other known cold-seep communities, thriving in near- or below-freezing temperatures, and may have unique properties.
		Although this has changed since the collapse of the ice shelf, the sea-bottom life seems still to be independent of usual oceanic food sources.
		In addition, the bacterial mat is already being covered by what appears to be debris dropped by melting ice and by the remnants of organisms that have already moved in, Domack and his team wrote this month in the newsletter of the American Geophysical Union.
	www.washingtonpost.com /wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/31/AR2005073100650_pf.html (935 words)

	Largest Arctic Ice Shelf Breaks Up, Draining Freshwater Lake
		An immediate consequence of the ice shelf's rupture was the loss of almost all of the freshwater from the northern hemisphere's largest epishelf lake, which had been dammed behind it in 30 kilometer [20 mile] long Disraeli Fiord.
		Then, in August 2002, the northern edge of the ice shelf calved, resulting in the loss of six square kilometers [two square miles] of ice islands and 20 square kilometers [eight square miles] of thick multi-year sea ice attached to the ice shelf.
		Mueller, Vincent, and Jeffries attribute the disintegration of the Ellesmere Ice Shelf and the breakup of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf to the cumulative effects of long-term warming since the 19th century.
	www.spacedaily.com /news/arctic-03e.html (1177 words)

	MTU Volcanoes Page - Ice Volcanoes
		Cones at the leading edge are normally open to the water, however after the ice shelf has built away from the volcanoes the cones may remain active and become completely enclosed.
		At this point the progradation of the ice shelf is retarded due to the increased energy of the breaking waves.
		Ice volcanoes are prototypically aligned in arcs that follow the strike of the associated geomorphologic features (shorelines, sand bars and rock reefs).
	www.geo.mtu.edu /volcanoes/ice (1003 words)

	Ross Ice Shelf Breaks
		In 1987, I saw it from an icebreaker.” He explained that the edge of the ice moves down from the high Antarctic plateau covering most of the continent at the rate of a kilometer a year and is fed by glaciers and ice streams.
		The ice is 2000 to 4000 meters thick on the plateau.
		It slowly moves down to the ice shelves, at the edges of the continent, where it gradually sloughs off, or calves, in the form of icebergs.
	www.ssec.wisc.edu /media/IcebergC-19.html (472 words)

	Antarctic ice shelf retreats happened before
		The retreat of Antarctic ice shelves is not new according to research published this week (24 Feb) in the journal Geology by scientists from Universities of Durham, Edinburgh and British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
		A study of George VI Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula is the first to show that this currently 'healthy' ice shelf experienced an extensive retreat about 9500 years ago, more than anything seen in recent years.
		The gradual removal of this ice shelf may be causing the glaciers inland to flow faster, which could lead to enhanced drainage of part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and a consequent rise in sea level.
	www.eurekalert.org /pub_releases/2005-02/bas-ais022305.php (359 words)

	The Antarctic ice sheet and rising sea levels (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-16)
		Ice is lost through the calving of icebergs, and by melting year-round from the base of ice shelves.
		It showed that most of the ice sheet is close to balance, but there were only a few years of satellite data and not all of the ice sheet was covered.
		Predicting the future of the ice sheet requires us to study past and present changes in the ice sheet and understand what caused them.
	www.antarctica.ac.uk /Key_Topics/IceSheet_SeaLevel (392 words)

	Unexplained Mysteries :: Ice shelf collapse biggest for 10,000 years
		Research by scientists from Hamilton College in New York, based on the scrutiny of six ice cores from the vicinity of the ice shelf, found that a collapse of this size had not happened during the period since the end of the last Ice Age.
		The piece of ice which sheered away from Larsen B into the sea in 2002 was roughly the size of Luxembourg.
		Although the disintegration of ice shelves does not itself cause sea levels to rise (because they are already floating), their loss is thought to speed up the flow of ice from ice sheets on land, causing sea levels to rise.
	www.unexplained-mysteries.com /viewnews.php?id=47736 (420 words)

	Satellite spies on doomed Antarctic ice shelf (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-16)
		The collapse of the 3250 km² ice shelf is the latest drama in a region of Antarctica that has experienced unprecedented warming over the last 50 years.
		Meanwhile, in Antarctica Argentinian glaciologist Pedro Skvarca, realised something was happening to the ice shelf and mobilised an aircraft to obtain aerial images confirming the satellite data.
		In 1998, Scientists of the British Antarctic Survey used numerical models to predict the future of one ice shelf, Larsen B and said that if it "were to retreat by a further few kilometres, it too is likely to enter an irreversible retreat phase".
	www.antarctica.ac.uk /News_and_Information/Press_Releases/2002/20020319.html (599 words)

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