Sudden collapse of Antarctic ice shelf could be sign of things to come

A huge ice shelf that was about the size of New York City or Rome collapsed into the ocean. Scientists warn that melting ice in this historically stable region may be a sign of things to come, as they do not expect significant impacts as a result of this event.

The Glenzer Conger Ice Shelf, which had been there for thousands of years, disappeared between March 14 and March 16. The Ice shelf had been slowly Shrinking since the 1970s, but recently accelerated melting preceded this month's sudden and unexpected collapse.

The Transantarctic Mountain Range separates the two halves of East and West Antarctica. In West Antarctica, the ice is more unstable than in the east, so melting ice and collapsing ice shelves are often observed.

East Antarctica is one of the driest places on planet Earth, and because of this, ice shelf collapses are rare there. According to the AP, this is the first major ice shelf collapse during human history.

There is a world's largest ice cube that breaks into a soup.

The ice shelf collapsed due to high temperatures in the region. The warmest temperature ever recorded in March at the station was recorded on March 18. The temperature is warmer than seasonal averages. According to a report by The Guardian, these high temperatures are the result of a jet of warm, moist air that trapped heat over the region. There was some of that rain.

The Conger Ice Shelf absorbed a lot of the heat from the atmospheric river. Catherine Colello Walker, a planetary scientist with NASA, speculated that the sudden collapse of the shelf was caused by the heat carried by a recent atmospheric river event.

The collapse on March 15 was the second of three calving events in the region this month, according to a professor of glaciology. The natural life cycle of an ice shelf is part of the reason why ice shelf calving events are named. Scientists need to explore the possibility of a c limate change connection because of the unseasonable heat.

According to the U.S. National Ice Center, the calving events began on March 7. One of them, dubbed C-37, is 8 nautical miles long and 3 nautical miles wide.

Scientists don't expect any major consequences from the collapse of the Conger Ice Shelf, but they warn that it could be the beginning of a troubling trend. Ice shelves act as a buffer to protect glaciers from melting. Sea-level rise in the coming decades could be caused by the melting of glaciers in East Antarctica.

It was originally published on Live Science.