Approaching Collapse of 10,000-year-old Antarctic Ice Shelf to Cause Massive Flooding

By R. Siva Kumar - 16 May '15 15:21PM

A new NASA study shows that one of Antarctica's ice shelves, or its remaining section, is showing high levels of melting, and is expected to "collapse" in just a few years, negatively influencing the planet's ocean levels, according to rt.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientists in Pasadena, California, looked into the ice levels of Antarctica's Larsen B Shelf, which collapsed in 2002, and concluded that one block of ice that seemed to be as big as the US State Rhode island, may vanish before this decade is up.

"These are warning signs that the remnant is disintegrating," team leader, Ala Khazendar said. "Although it's fascinating scientifically to have a front-row seat to watch the ice shelf becoming unstable and breaking up, it's bad news for our planet. This ice shelf has existed for at least 10,000 years, and soon it will be gone."

With the melting of the ice sheets, sea levels would rise by more than 200 feet, flooding all the land masses, according to ibtimes.

With data from an airborne survey campaign of NASA's Operation IceBridge, scientists looked into ice surface elevations and also "bedrock depths", comparing the readings collected even in 1997. A big rift is expected to crack all the way across the shelf before the end of this decade. The study was published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Hence, the free-floating icebergs will move away and melt. The accelerated rate of melting glaciers will impact the water levels as well as coastal populations.

Thus, Leppard and Flask, tributary glaciers of Larsen B's main satellite glaciers of the ice shelf, have thinned down at an accelerated rate since 2002. "The fastest-moving part of Flask Glacier had accelerated 36 percent by 2012 to a flow speed of 2,300 feet (700 meters) a year - comparable to a car accelerating from 55 to 75 mph," NASA said in a press release.

"What is really surprising about Larsen B is how quickly the changes are taking place," Khazendar said. "Change has been relentless."