Wilkins Sound
- 70.25 - 73Koordinaten: 70 ° 15 '0 "S, 73 ° 0' 0 " W
The Wilkins Ice Shelf (sometimes mistakenly called Wilkins Shield ) is an ice shelf on the named after Hubert Wilkins Wilkins shelf in Antarctica. It is bordered in the west and south of the Alexander I Island, in a southeasterly direction to the Latady island and handed to April 2009 in a northeasterly direction to Charcot Island. In the 1950s, the Wilkins Ice Shelf extended over an area of 16,000 km ², which decreased to March 2009 11.2 thousand km ². With about 1% of the entire Antarctic ice shelf area, the Wilkins Ice Shelf is one of the small ice shelves.
An ice shelf is caused by the sliding of glaciers into the sea. At the ice front to the sea, therefore, constantly breaking, from MOVED controlled by the ice and through air and water temperature, icebergs and panels.
An increased break-up of the Wilkins Ice Shelf is observed since 1995, which is probably due to the above-average warming of West Antarctica since about 1950. Meanwhile, the mean annual surface temperature is in the range of Wilkins Ice Shelf over -9 ° C, and thus beyond the temperature limit for the long-term survival of the ice shelf. In summer 2008, new cracks in the remaining shelf were discovered, which suggested an early further Cancel. Observations of the German Centre for Aerospace operated earth observation satellite TerraSAR -X and operated by ESA Envisat result for the year 2008 an ice loss of 1800 km ², which represents a decrease of 14% of the existing total area in early 2008. On 2 April 2009, finally broke the remaining ice bridge to Charcot Island. Parts of the ice drift since the open sea. As a result, the ice shelf area increased by further 1030 km ² from. Since the ice shelf is already floating in the water, is obtained by breaking his first no increase in sea level. However, it is believed that the ice shelf had a braking effect on the flow rate of the glacier adjacent islands.
Infrared image of the ice shelf, August 2009
Decrease of the ice shelf from 1947 to 2009