Collapse of Antarctic Ice Sheet was accelerated by global warming

Eugene S. Takle
© 2005

In March of 2002 a chunk of ice the size of the state of Connecticut (12,500 km2), a part of the Larsen B ice shelf, broke off the Antarctic Peninsula. Although ice shelves have broken off the peninsula with some regularity since the last glacial maximum some 11,000 years ago, this event was noteworthy. Domack and coauthors (2005) determined from oxygen isotope measurements in planktonic foraminifera that this event is a likely consequence of long-term (thousands of years) thinning and short-term (tens of years) "...cumulative increases in surface air temperature that have exceeded the natural variation of regional climate during the Holocene interglacial."

Reference

Domack, E., and coauthors, 2005: Stability of the Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula during the Holocene epoch. Nature, 436, 681-685.