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I was looking at the high res images of the breakup and noticed something I've always wanted to see. Which is what does the iceberg look line under the under the sea?



Take a look at the labeled iceberg. About 90% of it is blue and 10% is white. I'm speculating that its a slice of the tabular icesheet that has flipped on its side exposing the ice normally below sealevel. I expect that the blue color may mark the region previously below seawater. If the floating bergs are 25 m high, the depth below sea level would be about 200m making the whole berg about 225 m thick.

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Wilkins Ice Shelf has experienced further break-up with an area of about 160 km� breaking off from 30 May to 31 May 2008.
Wilkins Ice Shelf, a broad plate of floating ice south of South America on the Antarctic Peninsula, is connected to two islands, Charcot and Latady. In February 2008, an area of about 400 km� broke off from the ice shelf, narrowing the connection down to a 6 km strip; this latest event in May has further reduced the strip to just 2.7 km. ...
According to Dr Matthias Braun from the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces, Bonn University, and Dr Angelika Humbert from the Institute of Geophysics, M�nster University, who have been investigating the dynamics of Wilkins Ice Shelf for months, this break-up has not yet finished. "The remaining plate has an arched fracture at its narrowest position, making it very likely that the connection will break completely in the coming days," Braun and Humbert said.

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You can read more in a new article by Mauri S Pelto on the break-up of Antarctic Ice Shelves on Real Climate

June 9, 2008


March 2008

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10 July 2008
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is experiencing further disintegration that is threatening the collapse of the ice bridge connecting the shelf to Charcot Island. Since the connection to the island in the image centre helps to stabilise the ice shelf, it is likely the break-up of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk.

This animation, comprised of images acquired by Envisat�s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) between 30 May and 9 July 2008, shows the break-up event which began on the east (right) rather than the on west (left) like the previous event that occurred last month. By 8 July, a fracture that could open the ice bridge was visible.

According to the image acquired on 7 July 2008, Dr Matthias Braun from the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces at Bonn University estimates the area lost on the Wilkins Ice Shelf during this break-up event is about 1350 km� with a rough estimate of 500 to 700 km� in addition being lost if the bridge to Charcot Island collapses.

This break-up is puzzling to scientists because it has occurred in the Southern Hemispheric winter and does not have characteristics similar to two earlier events that occurred in 2008, which were comparable to the break-up of the Larsen-A and -B ice shelves.

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The full story is here at the European Space Agency website.