A glaciologist will use toy building bricks to demonstrate the principles of collapsing bridges and ice shelves at the British Association Annual Science Festival in Sheffield this week. This was almost certainly a consequence of the rising temperature along the Antarctic Peninsula during the last fifty years. However the effects of this rise have been less dramatic on other ice shelves which have retreated slowly year by year. Dr Vaughan s research shows that whilst ice shelves are sensitive indicators of climate change, not all changes in their structure are climate-driven.
Water trickles down through the snow and ice, weakens the ice causing the shelves to retreat.
But that wasn't enough to make Larsen Ice Shelf - B collapse so spectacularly. The mechanisms leading to the final phase of ice shelf collapse are complex. Although ice shelves are relatively flat, often spanning hundreds of miles, their stability and ultimate collapse is governed by the same pattern of forces found in bridges and natural rock arches. In terms of structural engineering ice is not too different from bricks and mortar. Ice shelves are floating glaciers that fringe much of the Antarctic ice sheet.