Wilkins Ice Shelf has experienced further break-up with an area of about 160 km² breaking off. This animation, comprised of images acquired by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) between 30 May and 9 June 2008, highlights the rapidly dwindling strip of ice that is protecting thousands of kilometres of the ice shelf from further break-up. This is the first ever-documented episode to occur in winter.

To see the breakup, please go to the European Space Agency webside.

Wilkins Ice Shelf has experienced further break-up with an area of about 160 km² (more…)

Reposted with permission from the Yale Climate Media Forum; by Zeke Hausfather

Among the most iconic image of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” was that of coastlines and cities disappearing beneath rising seas. Sea level rise is certainly one of the more worrisome impacts of climate change, but the film’s disregard of the time scales involved in sea level rise may have led some to think that sea level rise on the order of 20 feet is probable in this century. Scientists cannot completely rule out such rapid sea level rise, but the general sense in the climate science community is that a lower but still worrying degree of sea level rise is more likely. (more…)