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Credit & Copyright: Helmut Rott (U. Innsbruck)
Explanation:
It's all gone but the mountains.
Most of the sprawling landscape of ice that lies between the mountains
visible above has now disintegrated.
The above picture was taken in
Antarctica from the top of
Grey Nunatak, one of three Seal Nunatak mountains that border the
Larsen B Ice-Shelf.
The other two nunataks are visible
in the picture taken in 1994.
Over the past several years large chunks of the 200-meter thick
Larsen
B Ice-Shelf have been
breaking off and disintegrating.
The cause is the local high temperatures of recent years, part of a planet wide
climate change called
global warming.
Over the past few years, the
area that has
disintegrated is roughly the size of
Luxembourg.
As
ice-shelves break up, they unblock other
ice sheets that
fall onto the ocean, raising
sea levels everywhere.
Scientists are
watching
the much-larger
Ross Ice Shelf, which,
if it fully collapses, could cause
global
sea levels to rise five meters over the next few hundred years.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Antarctica
Publications with words: Antarctica
See also: