Climate change - Collapse of an ice-shelf

In 2002 Envisat captured the disintegration of the 200m-thick Larsen-B Ice Shelf, floating ice attached to the Antartic Peninusla and stable for the last 12,000 years.

he Antarctic Peninsula has experienced exceptional atmospheric warming over the last decades, triggering the retreat and break-up of the ice shelves.

The 3250 km2 chunk of ice fractured into thousands of small icebergs drifting eastwards into the Weddell Sea. This kind of break up is quite different from the periodic calving processes taking place 1000 km further south which have led to the presence of the large drifting icebergs seen in the image.