Antarctic ice shelves (some intact for 10k yrs) loss may shift axis of Earth. Wilkins Ice Shelf diminished by 30%

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The Wilkins Ice Shelf has been cracking in new places recently and images released by the European Space Agency show that it will probably very soon break off entirely. A 62 square mile piece broke off in May 2008.

Angelika Humbert of Muenster University stated, “During the last year the ice shelf has lost about 1800 square kilometers (694 square miles), or about 14 percent of its size.” The Wilkins Ice Shelf is currently about the size of Jamaica, though it has already been diminished by about 30 percent.

In January the British Antarctic Survey found that an array of very large ice chunks were breaking off and separating from the area. “The cracks in the Wilkins ice shelf and the chunks of ice that are splitting away from the ice-shelf….they’re kind of shopping mall chunks of ice and some are floating off into the ocean.” About 8 other such ice shelves there have been lost. At least one of them had been intact for approximately 10,000 years. Recent research has indicated that the loss of Antarctic ice shelves could actually shift the axis of the earth.

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Photos courtesy of National Ice and Snow Data Center, and Reuters

Original Source: EcoWorldly