Many thousands of King penguins – a species with a bright splash of yellow on their heads – live on the island, alongside Macaroni, Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins. “We put the odds of collision at 50/50,” Andrew Fleming from the British Antarctic Survey told AFP news agency. Shaped like a fist with a pointing finger, the iceberg known as A68a split off in 2017 from Larsen Ice Shelf on the West Antarctic Peninsula, which has warmed faster than any other part of the Earth’s southernmost continent.Īt its current rate of travel, it will take the giant iceberg – which is several times the area of greater London – 20 to 30 days to run aground in the island’s shallow waters.Ī68a is 160 kilometres (93 miles) long and 48 kilometres (30 miles) across at its widest point, but the iceberg is less than 200 metres deep, which means it could get dangerously close to the island. He said he hopes the images would continue to be an “eye in the sky” to monitor glacial change and improve public knowledge.Keep reading list of 3 items list 1 of 3 Antarctic penguin colonies decline 77 percent in 50 years list 2 of 3 Possible new record as Antarctica temperature soars list 3 of 3 Politics and penguins: The fight to save Antarctica end of list “These satellites are showing how much mass has been lost.” … We have been crying out for instruments like this,” Drinkwater said. “Sea level rise can have huge economic and societal impacts. The Argentine research base Esperanza, on the northern tip of #Antarctic Peninsula, saw a new record temperature of 18.3☌ today (old one 17.5☌ on 24 March 2015), per of previous record at #ClimateChange /ZKvzr765Am- World Meteorological Organization February 6, 2020 Last week, a region in the North West reached over 18 degrees Celsius (65 degrees Fahrenheit) – almost a full degree higher than the previous record from five years ago. The satellite images come as a research base on the tip of Antarctica recorded the hottest temperature on record for the continent. The changes to the glacier have been mapped by ESA-built satellites since the 1990s, with calving events occurring multiple times since 1992. “Its floating ice front, which has an average thickness of approximately 500 meters, has experienced a series of calving events over the past 30 years, some of which have abruptly changed the shape and position of the ice front,” the ESA said. The Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission carries radar, which can return images regardless of day or night and allows for year-round viewing. The areas of Paris and Manhattan are used to show the scale of the glacier's cracks. Using radar images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, the animation shows the evolution of the two emerging cracks in the Pine Island Glacier. “Since the early 1990s, the Pine Island Glacier’s ice velocity has increased dramatically to values which exceed 10 meters (or 30 feet) a day,” the space agency said in a news release. Two large rifts in PIG were spotted in 2019 and scientists have kept a close eye on the cracks and changes.īut it has been losing ice over the past 25 years. This phenomenon of calving isn’t new for Pine Island Glacier, according to the ESA. iubE8JffVR- Copernicus EU February 10, 2020 and 01 Oct., 4 months ago, when large cracks became apparent. □□The Pine Island glacier in #Antarctica □□ has finally calved, creating many large icebergs!Ĭheck out these #Sentinel1 □️□□ captures from yesterday 09 Feb., last week 05 Feb. The largest of them was so big, it was even given a name: B-49.ĭrinkwater suggested this was due to the continuing instability of the ice shelf, with greater levels of warm water under the glacier causing even greater disruption at the base of it. The region holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 1.2 meters, or 4 feet, according to NASA.Įarlier this month, the European Union’s Copernicus Sentinel satellite mission, which is implemented in partnership with ESA, captured cracks appearing and “rapidly” growing over a number of days.Īnd only a few days later, the glacier, also referred to as PIG, “spawned piglets,” ESA said – in a process known as calving – and “many large” icebergs were formed. Pine Island Glacier, along with its neighbor Thwaites Glacier, effectively act as arteries connecting the West Antarctic ice sheet to the ocean. He pointed to an “imbalance” in the glacial system, which meant the impacts of warming temperatures, warmer ocean water and declining of snowfall were not allowing the glacier to replenish itself. ![]() Record melting sees Swiss glaciers shrink 10% in five years The mighty Aletsch - the largest glacier in the Alps - could completely disappear by the end of this century if nothing is done to rein in climate change, a study showed on Septemby ETH technical university in Zurich. ![]() A photo taken on Octoshows the Aletsch glacier above Bettmeralp in the Swiss Alps.
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