By Sid Perkins
What’s eating Antarctica? In March 2000, an 11,000-square-kilometer iceberg the size of Connecticut split from the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. Two months later, a similar area of ice broke free from the continent’s Ronne Ice Shelf. Three months after that, the Ninnis Glacier Tongue, a 1,450 sq-km slab of ice jutting into the sea, snapped off near the shoreline and cast off for warmer climes.
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Last September, yet another huge chunk of ancient ice broke free from the Ross Ice Shelf. Now, satellites have detected a crack across the Antarctic ice shelf that’s fed by the Pine Island Glacier. This massive fissure promises to spawn another megaberg in the next 12 to 18 months.