One of Antarctica's fastest-shrinking glaciers just lost an iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C.

A photo from Europe's Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite shows two gargantuan cracks forming along the edge of Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier, one of the fastest-shrinking glaciers on the continent.
A photo from Europe's Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite shows two gargantuan cracks forming along the edge of Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier, one of the fastest-shrinking glaciers on the continent. (Image credit: ESA)

Pine Island Glacier, one of the fastest-shrinking glaciers in Antarctica, has just lost another huge chunk of ice to the sea, continuing a troubling trend that has become a near-annual occurrence in the last decade.

Scientists at Copernicus, the European Union’s Earth observation program, have been closely monitoring the glacier since large cracks appeared near its edge in October 2019. Yesterday, those cracks finally cut a chunk of the glacier away (a process known as calving), releasing a giant jigsaw puzzle of fresh icebergs into the nearby Amundsen Sea. In total, the icebergs measure about twice the size of Washington, D.C., in area (more than 130 square miles, or 350 square kilometers), according to The Washington Post.

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As a result, the Pine Island and Thwaites ice shelves are retreating inland faster than new ice can form. Scientists worry that this persistent retreat could be a sign that a runaway melting cycle is in effect: As comparatively warm sea water laps at the newly exposed edges of an ice shelf, melting accelerates, the ice shelf stretches and thins, and further calving becomes ever more likely. 

According to NASA, the region around the two glaciers contains enough vulnerable ice to raise the ocean by 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Pine Island's newest icebergs calved just days after scientists reported the hottest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica. On Thursday (Feb. 6), temperatures near a research base on the continent's northern edge reached 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3 degrees Celsius), the World Meteorological Organization reported. The previous record was 63.5 F (17.5 C), set in March 2015.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Brandon Specktor
Editor

Brandon is the space/physics editor at Live Science. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Reader's Digest, CBS.com, the Richard Dawkins Foundation website and other outlets. He holds a bachelor's degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona, with minors in journalism and media arts. He enjoys writing most about space, geoscience and the mysteries of the universe.