(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency) One of the last remaining sections of Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf is dramatically weakening, according to a new NASA study.
The study predicts that what remains of the once-prominent ice shelf, a thick floating platform of ice, most likely will "disintegrate completely" before the end of this decade.
Ice shelves are extensions of glaciers and function as barriers. Their disappearance means glaciers potentially will diminish more quickly, as well, increasing the pace at which global sea levels rise.
The collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf seems to have been caused by a series of warm summers on the Antarctic Peninsula, which happen during what in the Northern Hemisphere are winter months. Those trends built up to a particularly warm summer in 2002, according to NASA.
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