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Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses: March 2002

Animation of Larsen B breakup, 31 January to 7 March 2002

MODIS images from NASA's Terra satellite, National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder.

This is a true color animation of the events of January, February, and March 2002 as recorded by NASA's MODIS satellite sensor. (MODIS stands for Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer, a sensor flying on NASA's Terra satellite.) The images show the Larsen B ice shelf and parts of the Antarctic Peninsula (on left). The first scene from 31 January 2002 shows the shelf in late austral summer with dark bluish melt ponds dotting its surface. In the next two scenes minor retreat takes place, amounting to about 800 km², during which time several of the melt ponds well away from the ice front drain through new cracks within the shelf. The main collapse is seen in the last two scenes, on 5 March and 7 March, with thousands of sliver icebergs and a large area of very finely divided 'bergy bits' where the shelf formerly lay. Brownish streaks within the floating chunks mark areas where rocks and morainal debris are exposed from the former underside and interior of the shelf. The last phases of the retreat totalled ~2600 km².Resolution of the original images is 500 m.