Wordie Ice Shelf
Coordinates: 69 ° 15 ′ S , 67 ° 45 ′ W
The Wordie Ice Shelf was an Antarctic ice shelf made up of confluent glaciers on the Fallières coast of Graham Land on the Antarctic Peninsula . It was in the southeast section of Marguerite Bay between Cape Berteaux and Mount Edgell . The glaciers that flowed into the ice shelf included the Hariot Glacier , the Forster-Piedmont Glacier , which is itself a confluence of the Airy , Seller , Fleming and Prospect Glaciers , and the Carlson Glacier .
It was discovered by participants in the British Graham Land Expedition (1934-1937) led by the Australian polar explorer John Rymill . Rymill named the ice shelf after the Scottish polar explorer James Wordie (1889-1962), honorary secretary and later president of the Royal Geographical Society , who had participated in the endurance expedition (1914-1917) of the British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton .
In a series of events in the 1970s and 1980s, the ice shelf largely disintegrated. In 1992 there were still a few unconnected glacier tongues, in 2004 the ice had practically disappeared completely. The cause of the dissolution is a combination of increased melting rate due to the warming of the atmosphere - the region warmed up by approx. + 2.5 ° C between 1940 and 2010 - stronger waves due to sea ice losses in Marguerite Bay and warmer sea water.
After the ice shelf disappeared, the flow of the adjacent glaciers accelerated and lost mass. The flow of the Fleming Glacier accelerated again in 2008. For this largest of the glaciers flowing into the area of the former Wordie Ice Shelf, it is feared that it will further dissolve due to the upwelling of warmer seawater.
Web links
- Wordie Ice Shelf in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey
- Wordie Ice Shelf on geographic.org
Individual evidence
- ^ Joan Moody and Jessica K. Robertson: Landsat Documents Rapid Disappearance of Antarctica's Ice Shelves. Retrieved April 23, 2018 : "Scientists previously knew that the Wordie Ice Shelf has been retreating, but this study documents for the first time that it has completely disappeared."
- ↑ Jane G. Ferrigno et al. a .: Coastal-Change and Geological Map of the Larsen Ice Shelf Area, Antarctica: 1940-2005 . Ed .: US Geological Survey. ISBN 978-1-4113-1910-3 ( usgs.gov [PDF; 30.6 MB ]).
- ↑ Jane G. Ferrigno et al. a .: Coastal-Change and Glaciological Maps of the Antarctic Peninsula . Ed .: United States Geological Survey and British Antarctic Survey. Fact Sheet FS – 017–02, September 2011 ( usgs.gov [PDF; 751 kB ]).
- ↑ CSM Doake and DG Vaughan: Rapid disintegration of the Wordie Ice Shelf in response to atmospheric warming . In: Nature . tape 350 , March 28, 1991, pp. 328-330 , doi : 10.1038 / 350328a0 .
- ↑ a b Peter Friedl u. a .: Recent dynamic changes on Fleming Glacier after the disintegration of Wordie Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula . In: The Cryosphere . 2018, doi : 10.5194 / tc-12-1347-2018 .
- ^ AJ Cook and DG Vaughan: Overview of areal changes of the ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula over the past 50 years . In: The Cryosphere . tape 4 , 2010, doi : 10.5194 / tc-4-77-2010 .