Warming Antarctica Index

by Emily Gertz

Published April 07, 2009 @ 08:16PM PT

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Today NASA posted these images of West Antarctica's Wilkins Sound, before and after the breakup of the ice bridge - actually, the northern edge of the Wilkins ice sheet -- between the Wilkins ice shelf and Charcot Island.

March 31, 2009 - An intact if eroded ice bridge, 1.7 miles wide overall, 984 miles wide at its narrowest point:

Wilkins Ice Shelf, Mar. 31, 2009

April 6, 2009 - The ice bridge disintegrated, just six days later:

Wilkins Ice Shelf, Apr. 6, 2009

Here's an index of telling numbers that suggest the powerful changes being wrought by human-propelled global warming:

10,000: Likely age in years of the Wilkins ice shelf

9,990: Number of years it has been stable, approximately

5,000: Size of the Wilkins ice shelf at this time last year, in square miles [source]

695: Amount of ice, in square miles, that broke off the Wilkins ice shelf in 2008 [source]

Percentage of Wilkins ice shelf that broke away in 2008: 14

50: Number of years that West Antarctica has shown a definite warming trend [source]

+0.5°C (0.9 deg. F): Overall amount of warming, per decade, of West Antarctica surface in the past 50 years [source]

10: Total number of major Antarctic ice shelves to collapse in the past 30 years

7: Number that have collapsed in the past 20 years

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