More Icebergs Seen, Suggesting Warming Trend
The number of icebergs breaking away from Antarctica seems to be increasing, possibly a symptom of a rise in the Earth’s temperature, a government ice expert said Thursday.
“An abnormally high amount of ice shelf calving is occurring in Antarctica,” Glenn Rutledge of the Navy-NOAA Joint Ice Center said at a briefing.
The increase in icebergs may be a result of the rising temperature of the planet, but so far there is not enough information to be certain, said Russell Koffler, who heads the satellite services at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“We have only 12 years of data. That is nothing in the geological bucket,” added Rutledge, who is an NOAA meteorologist.
But he noted that both abnormally large icebergs and an increasing number of icebergs have been breaking loose in the last year or two.
Some scientists believe that the temperature increase, amounting to one or two degrees Fahrenheit in the last century, could lead to major climate changes including melting the ice in the polar regions.
This could cause a rise in the ocean level around the world and cause major changes in weather patterns, climatologists have warned.
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