Concerned scientists reported Friday that an ice shelf the size of New York City had collapsed in East Antarctica, an area that had been assumed to be stable and unaffected by climate change.
The ice shelf fall, which was seen on satellite photographs, was the first in human history in the freezing location. It happened at the start of a bizarre warm period last week, when temperatures in some parts of East Antarctica were more than 70 degrees higher than typical.
Satellite images show that the area has been shrinking rapidly in recent years, and scientists are now questioning whether they have overestimated East Antarctica's stability and resistance to global warming, which has been rapidly melting ice on the smaller western side and the vulnerable peninsula.
According to ice scientist Catherine Walker of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the ice shelf, which was roughly 460 square miles (1,200 square kilometres) broad and was holding in the Conger and Glenzer glaciers from warmer sea, disintegrated between March 14 and 16.
She stated that experts have never seen anything like this happen in this region of the continent, which is concerning.
"The Glenzer Conger ice shelf undoubtedly has been there for thousands of years and will never be there again," said ice scientist Peter Neff of the University of Minnesota.
Since the 1970s, scientists have noticed the ice shelf shrinking somewhat, according to Neff. The shelf's ice loss accelerated in 2020, with the shelf losing nearly half of its ice per month or so, according to Walker.
"It's most likely the effect of a lot of long-term rising ocean warming," Walker said. "It's just been melting and melting".
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