Antarctic Ice Shelf Shows New Signs of Fracturing

Recent satellite photographs show that the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica, which began to rapidly break apart earlier this year, is being split by numerous new cracks and appears to be on the verge of a new phase of disintegration. With the southern summer approaching in Antarctica, new satellite images from the European Space Agency show that fissures dozens of miles long developed in the ice shelf in late November. Large slabs of ice from the shelf’s earlier breakup in February are at upper right in the photo. Once the size of the state of Connecticut, the Wilkins Ice Shelf has lost much if its mass and now the only thing holding it in place is a narrow ice bridge, 1.6 miles wide, between Latady and Charcot islands. That bridge could easily shatter in the next three months. The Wilkins Ice shelf is located on the western Antarctic Peninsula, which is one of the fastest-warming places on earth. The Wilkins shelf is nearly 200 miles closer to the pole than the Larsen B Ice Shelf, which completely disintegrated in 2002.