UN sounds warning after Antarctica ice shelf rips

[link to news.yahoo.com]
PARIS (AFP) – The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said the breakway of a Jamaica-sized ice shelf from the Antarctic peninsula could accelerate global warming in this already vulnerable region.

Satellite pictures show a 40-kilometre (25-mile) ice bridge that was the Wilkins Ice Shelf's last link to the coast had now shattered at its narrowest point, about 500 metres (yards) wide, UNEP said.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf once covered around 16,000 square kilometres (6,000 square miles) before it began to retreat in the 1990s, and by last May the ice bridge was all that connected it to Charcot and Latady islands.

Last Edited by Phennommennonn on 08/30/2011 06:39 PM