A 5,000 square mile ice shelf in western Antarctica has begun to collapse in what scientists warn is the latest evidence of rapid climate change on the continent.
The Wilkins ice sheet is the largest yet on the Antarctic Peninsula to be threatened with collapse, and is "hanging by a thread", the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said.
Satellite images from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) showed an iceberg the size of the Isle of Man (25.5 miles by 1.5 miles) broke off on February 28.
This was followed by disintegration of around 220 square miles of the interior of the shelf and crumbling of the edges in what the NSIDC described as a pattern "characteristic of climate-induced ice shelf break-ups".
A large section of the shelf, a broad plate of permanent floating ice around 1,000 miles south of South America, is now held together by a narrow 3.7 mile strip of ice shelf between two islands.
The collapse of the ice shelf had been predicted but is happening more quickly than expected, the scientists said.
It is thought warming of the atmosphere, which has been happening several times faster on the Antarctic Peninsula than the global average in the past 50 years, has created more surface melt of ice which is weakening the shelf.
And vanishing sea ice has left the shelf exposed to the action of ocean waves which could also be having an effect.
Professor David Vaughan of the BAS, who predicted in 1993 the northern part of the Wilkins ice shelf would be lost within 30 years, said: "Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula yet to be threatened.
"I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly. The ice shelf is hanging by a thread - we'll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be."
>> Vote in our latest web poll
The full article contains 328 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
