Climate change shattered Antartic ice shelf

March 27, 2008 , Reuters

A 13,680 square kilometre ice shelf has begun to collapse because of rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica.

Satellite images of the Wilkins Ice Shelf showed that a huge iceberg, 41 x 2.5 km, about seven times the size of Manhattan, has disintegrated from the ice shelf recently.

The Wilkins began its collapse on Feb 28 (2008); a narrow beam of intact ice, just 6 km wide, was protecting the remaining shelf from further breakup as of March 23.

Based on global trends, 2008 is still expected to end up among the top 10 warmest years since records began in the 1860s.

A Reuters interview with Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia said, "So far 2008, for the globe, has been quite cold, only just above the 1961-90 average."

"This is just January and February, so two coolish months comparable to what happened in 1994 and 1996," he told Reuters.

The northern spring formally begins on March 20 this year.

And an underlying warming trend, blamed by the U.N. Climate Panel on human use of fossil fuels, is likely to reassert itself after the end of a La Nina cooling of the Pacific in the coming months. There were similar conditions in 1998 and 2005, the hottest so far, Jones said.

Finland had its warmest winter on record. High-speed ferries between Helsinki and Tallinn in Estonia, normally halted for months by winter ice on the Baltic Sea, started earlier than ever in mid-March.

In Norway, many ski resorts have deep snow even though the winter has been the third warmest on record -- scientists say a spinoff of climate change may be more precipitation.

"Turnover is 16 percent over the best season of 2004," said Andreas Roedven, head of Norway's Alpine Ski Area Association.

Electricity prices in the Nordic region halved this month to 27.5 euros ($43.48) per megawatt hour from late 2007 highs because hydropower reservoirs were full and warm temperatures curbed heating demand.

[More stories on National Snow and Ice Data Center and British Antarctic Survey]

Source:

a. British Antartic Survery

b. The Star Online

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