Collapse of the ice bridge supporting Wilkins Ice Shelf appears imminent

European Space Agency: The Wilkins Ice Shelf is at risk of partly breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula as the ice bridge that connects it to Charcot and Latady Islands looks set to collapse. The beginning of what appears to be the demise of the ice bridge began this week when new rifts forming along its centre axis resulted in a large block of ice breaking away.

The Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) images acquired on 2 April by ESA’s Envisat satellite confirm that the rifts are quickly expanding along the ice bridge.
Dr Angelika Humbert from the Institute of Geophysics, Münster University, and Dr Matthias Braun from the Center for Remote Sensing, University of Bonn, witnessed the recent development during their daily monitoring activities of the ice sheet using data from Envisat and the German Aerospace Center’s TerraSAR-X satellite.

By having a time series of radar satellite images throughout this event, Humbert and Braun are able to determine how the rifts develop and how the narrowest part of the bridge responds to these changes. Knowing these details allows them to learn more about the behaviour of ice under stress.

Satellite acquisitions of the ice shelf are available to the public via ESA’s ‘Webcam from Space’. The web page will be updated with Envisat images as they are received to allow the public to witness the event…..

Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) captured the early stage of the disruption of the ice bridge that connects the Wilkins Ice Shelf to Charcot and Latady Islands on 2 April 2009 at 05:18 UTC. The new rifts that developed along the length axis of the ice bridge are visible. The first detachment along these new rifts occurred about seven hours later.  Credits: ESA (Annotations by A. Humbert, Münster University)