Iceberg Antarctica: Pine Island Glacier Breaks Off Chunk Large Than The City Of Chicago [VIDEO]

Iceberg, dead ahead! Seriously, an iceberg larger than Chicago broke off Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier on Monday. Scientist attributed the spilt to warmer ocean temperatures. German researchers observed the new Antarctica iceberg through the TerraSAR-X, an earth observing satellite. The chunk of ice that spilt covers 278 square miles, making it larger than Chicago which measures 234 square miles.

"Using the images we have been able to follow how the larger crack on the Pine Island Glacier extended initially to a length of 17 miles," said Nina Wilkens, a researcher from the Alfred Wegener Institute. "Shortly before the 'birth' of the iceberg, the gap then widened bit by bit so that it measured around 1,770 feet at its widest point."

The crack in the Pine Island Glacier was first discovered in late 2011, by NASA's Operation IceBridge team. In June NASA furthered its research by releasing a study that showed the effects of warming ocean waters on the undersides of icebergs. The study, which NASA said was the first to research all of the continent's ice shelves, discovered that underside melting accounted for 55 percent of the ice shelf mass loss from 2003 to 2008.

NASA also discovered in the study that Antarctica holds about 60 percent of Earth's fresh water within its expansive "ice sheets." Antarctica's ice sheet will respond to a warming ocean by melting and contribute to sea level rise. These ice sheets serve as buttresses, with the glaciers positioned behind them, the ice sheets act to control the speed of Antarctica's rivers of ice as they flow into the ocean.

According to NASA, the melting of the ice sheets will also will improve global models of ocean circulation by providing a better estimate of the amount of fresh water ice shelf melting add to Antarctic coastal waters.

Angelika Humbert, a glaciologist with the Wegener Institute, believes that the break of the Pine Islands glacier has more to do with changing wind directions in the Amundsen Sea, and less by rising air temperatures.

"The wind now brings warm sea water beneath the shelf ice," Humbert said, according to LiveScience.com. "Over time, this process means that the shelf ice melts from below, primarily at the so-called grounding line, the critical transition to the land ice."
The Alfred Wegener Institute is a German research organization associated with the Helmholtz Association that conducts research in the Arctic and Antarctica.

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