It was anticipated for months and finally the largest ice berg ever created has calved off Antarctica creating a massive floating island of ice containing twice the volume of Lake Erie.  Although calving of ice bergs is a common process when land glaciers meet the sea, it is hard not to correlate this event with climate change. Certainly an ice berg of this magnitude has never been created in human history so it is likely indirectly related to climate change.  The figure below shows the position of the ice crack on May 31, 2017 only 13 km from the open sea. The bottom figure now shows how the ice berg finally calved off the main glacier on July 12, 2017 even though it is winter in Antarctica.

Scientists speculate that the ice may refreeze but it is most likely that the Larcen C ice shelf has now become unstable with the removal of 12% of its ice area in one day.  Removal of this large ice fragment can cause the main land glacier to accelerate towards the open sea, causing future ice calving to accelerate in kind.

Maddalena Environmental Inc.
​Al Maddalena

 The largest ice berg ever created is about to calve off from the Larcen C ice shelf in Antartica.  The resulting ice berg will be about the size of the state of Delaware.  An enormous crack in the ice shelf was first noticed in 2010 and has been accelerating ever since. The location of the Larcen C ices shelf and others are shown below.

Below you can see progression of the huge crack in the ice shelf beginning in 2010 to 2017.

Even though it is currently winter in the southern hemisphere, scientists believe the crack is still progressing and on May 31, 2017 the crack is only 13 km from the open ocean. It is expected to reach open ocean in weeks. When it arrives at the ocean, it will break off entirely, creating a massive floating ice-berg the size of Delaware.   The diagram below explains how an ice shelf extends over the open ocean and is undercut by warmer ocean water currents.  This is the reason why the shelf crack continues to progress even though winter has arrived in Antarctica. Complete melting of this one massive ice berg alone will likely raise ocean levels world wide by 10 cm.  

The above arial image of the crack shows how deep it is and how very noticeable it is from the air. This historic event marks a milestone in global climate change and is an indicator that the planet is on course to a major warming event.

Maddalena Environmental Inc.
​Al Maddalena
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