Ice cap cracks out a global warning

ANTARCTICA’S ancient ice shelf has begun to break up, according to Argentine scientists

They say that warming seas are beginning to destroy a barrier insulating the continental Ice cap from ice cap melting.

"The first thing I did was cry," Dr Rodolfo del Valle said in Buenos Aires last week.

‘Dr del Valle heads the Earth Sciences Department of Argentina’s National Antarctic Direction.

He discovered a 70-km-long crack in the northern most part of the Larsen ice shelf that runs 1,000 km up the Antarctic peninsula.

The cracking of the shelf was a sign of warming in the peninsula that was even more worrying than the giant iceberg British scientist said broke off the shelf January, Dr del Valle sai.d

United States scientists predicted in the ‘70s that the rnelting of Antarctica’s ice shelf would be a clear signal of accelerating global warming

"Dr del Valle was at an Antarctic camp on James Ross Island in January when he was radioed by colleagues from an Argentine base on the Larsen ice shelf.

"On Jan 23, they called me over the radio and said: Rudi, something’s happen the ice shelf is breaking,’" he said.

"An enormous crack had opened from the edge of the shelf on the Weddel Sea up to the mountains."

Flying 2,000 m overhead in a light plane, Dr del Valsaw the Ice shelf, up to 300 m thick in parts, was beginning to break up, exposing patches of sea, probably in the first time in 20,000 years.

"It was spectacular, because what was once a platform of ice 70 km wide had been broken up into pieces that looked like bits of polystyrene. foam ... smashed by a child," he said.

Argentine scientists had predicted the warming climate in the Antarctic peninsula would lead to the beginning of the break-up of the northern ice shelf in 10 years.   However, it happened much more quickly than they had anticipated.

The shelves help insulate the continental ice cap from warmer weather.

While few scientists believe the entire ice cap can melt, even its partial disappearance may prove catastrophic.

The ice cap covers the continent like a giant wedding cake and, on average, is 2 km thick. It contains 70 per cent of the world’s fresh water. If it all melts away, sea levels would rise by be4ween 36 m and 90 m.

Worried scientists around the world are monitoring closely any changes in the ice shelf.

"Everyone has their attention fixed on climate change and on the theory that says that the first step towards the destruction of the western Antarctic ice cap is the breaking up of the Ice shelves," Dr del Valle said.

Measurements in the Antarctic peninsula showed its average temperature had risen by more than 2 deg C since 1930, with about half the warming occurring in the past 20 years.

Scientists still do not agree on the extent of global warming caused by burning fossil fuels.

Dr del Valle thinks warming may be taking place naturally but that greenhouse gases may be accelerating the process dangerously. — Reuter

Source : The Straits Times27th Mar 1995

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