An expanse of sea ice more than three times the size of New York City has torn free from Antarctica and broken up in dramatic fashion.
For 11 years, in one of the fastest warming regions on Earth, the 1,000-square-mile sheet of floating ice had tenaciously held fast to the coastline of the Antarctic Peninsula.
But then, in just a few days, warm winds racing down from the peninsula's mountains delivered a death blow. Between January 16 and 21, the sea ice fractured and broke free from a coastal indentation known as the Larsen B Embayment, taking with it a Philadelphia-sized chunk of the much sturdier Scar Inlet Ice Shelf.
You can see the run up to the event, the breakup itself, and its aftermath, in this animation of satellite images, acquired between January 16 and 31:
An animation of daily images acquired by NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites between ...
