The Wilkins Ice Shelf Is Experiencing Further Disintegration.

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The Wilkins Ice Shelf that we wrote about last March is experiencing further disintegration. The Ice Shelf has reduced further due to disintegration that is threatening the collapse of the ice bridge connecting the shelf to Charcot Island. Since the connection to the island in the image centre helps to stabilize the ice shelf, it is likely the break-up of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk. Once the connection to the island is gone, shelf might come under other possible changes due loss of stability that the shelf had due to the bridge.

An animation, comprised of images acquired by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) between 30 May and 9 July 2008, available at the ESA site (Link Below) shows the break-up event which began on the east (right) rather than the on west (left) like the previous event that occurred last month. By 8 July, a fracture that could open the ice bridge was visible. According to the image acquired on 7 July 2008, Dr Matthias Braun from the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces at Bonn University estimates the area lost on the Wilkins Ice Shelf during this break-up event is about 1350 km² with a rough estimate of 500 to 700 km² in addition being lost if the bridge to Charcot Island collapses.
This is how the shelf looked like in 1992.
ESA Article for more information and photos.

Tags: Wilkins Ice Shelf, Charcot Island, Envisat, Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar, Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces