Iceberg B-34 frees itself from Antarctica's Getz ice sheet and proceeds to scour the sea floor.
Wed Apr 29, 2015 at 01:38 AM PDT.
Iceberg B-34 frees itself from Antarctica's Getz ice sheet and proceeds to scour the sea floor.
'It's catastrophic, really. They kill 99 per cent of things they come in contact with".
David Barnes, British Antarctic Survey
An iceberg 17 miles long, now named B-34, cracked and broke loose from Antarctica's Getz Ice Shelf. The Getz ice shelf is roughly 300 miles long and up to 60 miles wide. Ice shelves in Antarctica have an average thickness of between 1,300 to 1,600 feet and some can extend out hundreds of miles off the coast. The Amundsen shelves are grounded on a bed that lies below sea level and several large islands are partially or wholly embedded in the ice shelf. The Amundsen Sea ice shelves are weak and more prone to climate change. It is thought to be melting at a rate triple of what it had 10 years ago. NASA notes:
"Why is the Amundsen Sea region more at risk than other parts of West Antarctica?
In addition to the ice sheet being grounded below sea level, there are three main reasons. First, the glaciers here lack very large ice shelves to stem ice flow. Second, they aren’t "pinned" by obstructions in their beds except in a few small places, unlike the Ronne and Ross shelves which are pinned down by large islands. Third, as first observed in the 1990s, the area is vulnerable to a regional ocean current, ushered in by the shape of the sea floor and the proximity of the circumpolar deep current. This current delivers warm water to grounding lines and the undersides of ice shelves in the region."
More:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/29/1380632/-Iceberg-B-34-frees-itself-from-Antarctica-s-Getz-ice-sheet-and-proceeds-to-scour-the-sea-floor?detail=email
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