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BookmarkThe Larsen Ice Shelf is a long, fringing ice shelf in the northwest part of the Weddell Sea, extending along the east coast of Antarctic Peninsula from Cape Longing to the area just southward of Hearst Island.
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The Larsen Ice Shelf is a series of three shelves that occupy (or occupied) distinct embayments along the coast.
From north to south, the three segments are called Larsen A (the smallest), Larsen B, and Larsen C (the largest) by researchers who work in the area.
The Larsen A ice shelf disintegrated in January of 1995.
The Larsen B ice shelf disintegrated in February of 2002.
The Larsen C ice shelf appears to be stable. The Larsen disintegration events were unusual.
Typically, ice shelves lose mass by iceberg calving and by melting at their upper and lower surfaces.
The disintegration events are linked to the ongoing climate warming in the Antarctic Peninsula, about 0.5 °C per decade since the late 1940's (possibly a result of global warming)..
For more information about the topic Larsen Ice Shelf, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:
Ice shelf — 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, ... > read more
Antarctic ice sheet — The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It covers an area of almost 14 million square km and contains 30 million cubic km ... > read more
