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- Composed of freshwater ice that originally fell as snow
- Originally covered an area of 16,000 km2
- Believed to have formed at the onset of the Little Ice Age
- Began retreating in the 1990s
- 1000 km2 of the shelf was lost in 1998
- 200-300 square miles broke off in February and March of 2008
- 14% of mass lost in 2008 aloneFOXNews.com: Massive Ice Shelf About to Break Away From Antarctic Coast
- Once covered 5,000 square miles, now down to 985 yards at narrowest pointFOXNews.com: Massive Ice Shelf About to Break Away From Antarctic Coast
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The Wilkins Ice Shelf on the West Antarctica Peninsula, a plate of permanent floating ice that once covered an area the size of Connecticut, is retracting at an alarming rate. Scientists predicted in 1993 that the shelf would collapse within 30 years, but the increasing effects of climate change have caused it to melt at double the anticipated rate.
On April 2, 2009, the European Space Agency warned that the bridge that connected the Wilkins Ice Shelf to Charcot and Latady Islands was in danger of an imminent collapse. Satellite images from the last week of March 2009 showed newly formed rifts within the bridge's structure.FOXNews.com: Massive Ice Shelf About to Break Away From Antarctic Coast
Consequences of Collapse
The final collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf will not greatly impact sea levels, as it is already floating in the ocean and does not hold back any land-based glaciers.Quotes
- "Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula yet to be threatened. I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly."—Professor David Vaughan, British Antarctic Survey
- "Wilkins is a stepping stone in a larger process. It's really a story of what's yet to come if the mainland of Antarctica begins to warm."—Ted Scambos, glaciologist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colorado
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Wilkins Ice Shelf Questions
In the NHL, how is icing indicated and how is icing waved off? 2 AnswersIcing...Rule 81.1 Here is an except from the NHL rulebook to explain how icing gets waved off http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=26494 ---quote--- For the p... read more
Have you ever had a software project that was shelfed? 3 AnswersI spent 2+ years using my overhead to rewrite our in-house web app mess from scratch. I was using our down time, so it was better than goofing around. The resul... read more
What is your most interesting ice breaker? 5 AnswersWell when I was a bartender, I used to ask people what they would do if they found that the hokey pokey was what it's really all about... read more
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