Back in late February and March, at the end of an unusually intense melting season, several hundred kilometres of ice broke off of the Wilkins Ice Shelf and several thousand square kilometres more are still hanging by a narrow strip of intact ice. Ever since the break-up occurred, experts from around the world have been keeping a close eye on it.
As a specialist in ice shelf dynamics and ice mechanics who has done research on a number of different ice shelves in Antarctica, Dr. Angelika Humbert from the University of Münster in Germany is amongst these experts.
In a recent interview with SciencePoles, Dr. Humbert discusses the possible mechanisms that led to the disintegration of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, ability to predict such events, how ice shelves function, and the importance of further research in order to better understand the causes of such break-up events.
Photo: Angelika Humbert