Chicago-sized iceberg could soon calve off Antarctica ice sheet

“New iceberg imminent from the Larsen Ice Shelf system,” tweeted Professor Adrian Luckman, who monitors the glacier system. “This time from Larsen D, just south of Larsen C.”

The new iceberg will be about 193 square miles and will most likely take a large chunk of attached sea ice along with it, he said.

New iceberg imminent from the Larsen Ice Shelf system. This time from Larsen D, just south of Larsen C. The new iceberg will measure 500 square km, and will probably take with it a much larger area of very old fast ice (attached sea ice). Speed colours for LGBT Pride month! pic.twitter.com/la9Fhb2GCH

— Adrian Luckman (@adrian_luckman) June 24, 2020

 While the event itself is small and relatively natural, Luckman told Newsweek, it is notable within the context of the general melting of the Antarctic due to climate change.

“I only spotted the crack a couple of weeks ago when it had just initiated, and it has already traversed nearly the whole distance to calving,” Luckman told Newsweek. “The calving of small chunks such as this are a natural part of the calving cycle of ice shelves and there is no available evidence to suggest that this event was precipitated early. On the other hand, ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have been losing area at an increasing rate in recent decades as ocean and atmospheric warming has increased.”

The Larsen Ice Shelf has been disintegrating for years, and Antarctic ice melt is known to be accelerating.

The Larsen C Ice Shelf calved in 2017, and though individually the calving is part of normal glacial life, the ice is less and less stable with each one, researchers said at the time.

Ice shelves are permanently floating sheets of ice that grow from land and out into the water, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

While they don’t contribute directly to sea level rise directly upon breakup, it could do so indirectly, the center said, by enabling the glaciers behind them to flow more quickly out to see. Those do raise sea level, since they are coming from land, the data center said.

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