Science Source

Impacts of the Larsen-C Ice Shelf calving event

States that:
- Loss of ice shelf mass can reduce the backward pressure blocking the downward flow of ice from the interior
- On the Antarctic Peninsula, ice shelf thinning or collapsing events have caused up to an eight-fold speed-up in the rate of ice flow, increasing the ice-sheet contribution to global sea-level rise
States that:
- Ice rises (isolated high-elevation topographic features overridden by the ice-shelf, e.g. small islands that serve as pinning points) provide additional buttressing support for floating ice-shelves
- An ice shelf's loss of contact with an ice rise can prompt a significant acceleration in ice speed and possibly further destabilization of the ice front
Warns that if iceberg calving events unground the Larsen-C ice shelf from the Bawden ice rise, the remaining shelf will be much less stable
Notes that regardless, this is an opportunity for glaciologists to test their ideas about how ice shelves affect ice flow
Notes that it is not clear what physical mechanism drives ice-shelf disintegration, meaning a direct link to global climate change cannot be established, and so model predictions of the pace and onset of future collapse events are less reliable