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The European Space Agency reported on Friday that satellite photos taken over the past several months reveal that the massive Wilkins ice shelf is crumbling, even in the depths of antarctic winter. The scary part is that the bit that's crumbling, as you can see in these images, is a small bridge attaching a massive, thousands-of-square-miles sheet of ice to another. Once this tiny bridge falls apart, it will unleash one of the biggest chunks of ice to break off the frozen continent ever. The ESA estmates the bridge will break up within the next few days. [ESA via Universe Today] More »
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An enormous chunk of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica started collapsing a few weeks ago. The slab, roughly the size of Connecticut, is "hanging by a thread." What will happen when over 5,000 square miles of ice break free? It could be a part of the coming ecological apocalypse. But if we just use the right technology, that iceberg could mean drinkable water for people in the parched regions of the Western U.S. and Australia where climate change is already creating terrible droughts. More »
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