• 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

• Fast Facts

  1. Composed of freshwater ice that originally fell as snow
  2. Originally covered an area of 16,000 km²
  3. Believed to have formed at the onset of the Little Ice Age
  4. Began retreating in the 1990s
  5. 1000 km² of the shelf was lost in 1998
  6. 200-300 square miles broke off in February and March of 2008
  7. 14% of mass lost in 2008 aloneFOXNews.com: Massive Ice Shelf About to Break Away From Antarctic Coast
  8. 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

• 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

  1. "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
  2. "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

• Related Mahalo Pages

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