NEWS: The Wilkins Ice Shelf is breaking away from Antarctica
The latest images from ESA show that the ice bridge that was linking the ice shelf to the Charcot Island is collapsing. This surely means that the ice shelf will break away from Antarctica in a question of days. You can see the lastest images at ESA's official Wilkins Ice Shelf monitoring webpage Right now the presence of clouds in the area prevents NASA satellites to get optical data from the area. We will be updating the images here as soon as we get some relevant images.
Well, this is my first
attempt to write some html for some time, it seems that I will have to start a blog one of these days (thanx Angie ;-) but meanwhile I will put some notes in my website. To start with, a nice example of global warming.
The Wilkins Ice Shelf seems to be melting away. (An ice shelf is a thick, floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface) Located in the Antarctic peninsula, the shelf is now only held up by a very thin strip of ice (varying from 2 km to 500 meters at the narrowest), which makes it very vulnerable to cracks and fissures. If the strip were to break, it would release the ice shelf, which has an extension over 10000 square kilometers. If you want more information jump here, it might help
Due to the ice shelf imminent risk of collapse ESA’s Envisat satellite is observing the area on a daily basis. The satellite acquisitions are updated automatically to monitor the developments immediately as they occur. This can be seen in ESA's official Wilkins Ice Shelf monitoring webpage These images are being processed using a system that I designed and implemented.
Here you have my personal unofficial Wilkins Ice Shelf monitoring page. The advantange is that you will have both ESA and NASA data on the matter. The disadvantage... it will be updated every now and then. You can access also the individual images. If you have Google Earth installed you can see the animation on it. If you don't like these eerie colours you can see it in a more realistic way (but no radar, sorry) Enjoy!
The Wilkins Ice Shelf seems to be melting away. (An ice shelf is a thick, floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface) Located in the Antarctic peninsula, the shelf is now only held up by a very thin strip of ice (varying from 2 km to 500 meters at the narrowest), which makes it very vulnerable to cracks and fissures. If the strip were to break, it would release the ice shelf, which has an extension over 10000 square kilometers. If you want more information jump here, it might help
Due to the ice shelf imminent risk of collapse ESA’s Envisat satellite is observing the area on a daily basis. The satellite acquisitions are updated automatically to monitor the developments immediately as they occur. This can be seen in ESA's official Wilkins Ice Shelf monitoring webpage These images are being processed using a system that I designed and implemented.
Here you have my personal unofficial Wilkins Ice Shelf monitoring page. The advantange is that you will have both ESA and NASA data on the matter. The disadvantage... it will be updated every now and then. You can access also the individual images. If you have Google Earth installed you can see the animation on it. If you don't like these eerie colours you can see it in a more realistic way (but no radar, sorry) Enjoy!
The time and date specified is UTC
If you don't understand exactly what you are seeing go here, it might help.
Thanx are due to both ESA and NASA that made this possible.... (change that into whatever law stuff it's applicable)
Thanx are due to both ESA and NASA that made this possible.... (change that into whatever law stuff it's applicable)
