Delaware-Size Trillion-Ton Iceberg Is About To Break Off Antarctica

"An enormous iceberg, more than 2,000 square miles in area — or nearly the size of Delaware — is poised to detach from one of the largest floating ice shelves in Antarctica and float off in the Weddell Sea, south of the tip of South America.

Scientists have been expecting the break from the Larsen C ice shelf, monitoring the progress of a crack that extended to over 100 miles long in recent months. The latest update from scientists with NASA and the University of California, Irvine found that only three remaining miles of ice continue to connect the impending iceberg to the larger shelf.

Those parts of the iceberg that have already detached have begun to move rapidly seaward, widening the rift in recent days and leaving the remaining ice 'strained near to breaking point,' according to Adrian Luckman, a scientist monitoring Larsen C at Swansea University in Wales."

Chris Mooney reports for the Washington Post July 5, 2017.