Massive Crack In Antarctica’s Ice Shelf Grows By An Alarming 10 Kilometers Since January 1

A rift in Antarctica's Larsen C Ice Shelf has reportedly grown by 10 km since Jan. 1, 2017. Furthermore, the giant crack in the ice shelf is continuing to spread at an alarming rate and could cast off a record breaking iceberg a big as Wales or Delaware.

According to a BBC report, only a 20-kilometer block of ice now connects the probable iceberg to its parent shelf. In fact, a team of researchers that has been closely monitoring the 350-meter-thick Larsen C ice shelf in West Antarctica as part of Project MIDAS, using computer simulations, data gathered on-site and imagery from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 radar satellite, has warned of an impending break.

"After a few months of steady, incremental advance since the last event, the rift grew suddenly by a further 18 km during the second half of December 2016. Only a final 20 km of ice now connects an iceberg one quarter the size of Wales to its parent ice shelf," the researchers have stated. The research team has also added that when the glacier actually breaks away, the ice shelf will lose approximately 10 percent of its mass, which will eventually change the Antarctic Peninsula's landscape.

According to Washington Post, Paul Holland of the British Antarctic Survey has previously stated that if the Larsen C Ice Shelf collapses in the next 100 years, then it would lead to a much faster rate of sea level rise. Other suggestions based on various estimates imply that if the Larsen C Ice Shelf were to disintegrate completely, then sea levels could rise by 10 cm, because it would not protect the ground ice from melting, which actually leads to sea level rises more than the melting of glaciers.

Incidentally, according to Project MIDAS, the increasing crack in the Larsen B Ice Shelf is not directly caused by climate change but rather is an inevitable part of Antarctica's geography. However, global warming may have increased the speed at which the rift is spreading.