SOURCE: Washington Post
DATE: February 25, 2019
SNIP: A chasm and a crack on the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica are creeping closer and closer to one another, and when the two finally meet, a slab of ice twice the size of New York City will break away and float out to sea.
The two glacial flaws are about 2.5 miles apart, and it could take days or months for them to finally rendezvous. Even when they do, the iceberg that forms in the Weddell Sea won’t be the largest spawned by Antarctica. In fact, it might not even make the historical top 20.
Its size is not what makes it noteworthy — it’s what the break itself says about the natural process of iceberg calving, the way climate change might be destabilizing ice shelves similar to the Brunt, and how the movement could jeopardize the critical scientific research human residents have conducted there for more than 60 years.