Rapid Sea Ice Breakup along the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf - January 13 2010

Ice Chunk Larger than Rhode Island Breaks Away From Antarctica. Live Science, January 17, 2010.

“In less than a day, the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf, which is bigger than the state of Rhode Island, broke away from Antarctica and shattered into many pieces last week. NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites captured the event, at the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf, in a series of photo-like images on Jan. 12-13. The long, narrow tongue of ice is a bridge of sea ice linking the A-23A iceberg to the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf in West Antarctica. The ice bridge is fast ice, or sea ice that does not move because it is anchored to the shore. Compared to an ice shelf, the sea ice is a thin shell of ice over the ocean. The difference in thickness is visible in the images. The taller, thicker Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf casts a visible shadow on the ice bridge made of sea ice. This particular ice bridge breaks up and reforms regularly. Even though the images show a routine event, they provide a spectacular view of the sometimes dramatic arrival of summer in the Polar South.”

This should reassure the skeptics that the latest ice age is not coming after all.  It’s not cold everywhere — like in the southern hemisphere, where summer has arrived and the Antarctic ice bridges are melting.  Should this melting worry people?  Not this particular ice bridge, which breaks up routinely, according to NASA.  What’s interesting about this thin ice is that the breakup, which comes with summer, was captured in photos.  See the original images here.  From NASA:

Within a 24-hour space, an area of sea ice larger than the state of Rhode Island broke away from the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf and shattered into many smaller pieces. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites captured this event in this series of photo-like images from January 12 and January 13, 2010.

The long, narrow tongue of ice is a bridge of sea ice linking the A-23A iceberg to the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf in West Antarctica. The ice bridge is fast ice, or sea ice that does not move because it is anchored to the shore. Compared to an ice shelf, the sea ice is a thin shell of ice over the ocean. The difference in thickness is visible in the images. The taller, thicker Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf casts a visible shadow on the ice bridge made of sea ice. This particular ice bridge breaks up and reforms regularly. Even though the images show a routine event, they provide a spectacular view of the sometimes dramatic arrival of summer in the Polar South.

Other recent melting in the Antarctic is something to be much more concerned about.  “The East Antarctic ice sheet has been losing mass for the last three years, according to an analysis of data from a gravity-measuring satellite mission.”  Read more here.