In January through April of 2002, the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed in the Antarctic. This was a huge sheet of ice, about 3250 square kilometers (1250 square miles) in area, roughly equal to a square 57 km (34 miles) on a side. There had been a series of warm summers that weakened the shelf, and then the very warm summer of 2002 spelled doom for it. The Landsat 7 satellite took many images of the collapse, but the Earth Observatory Image of the Day just released two dramatic shots of its impact:
The top image was taken on April 6, 2002 -- about two months after the shelf collapsed -- and the bottom one on February 20, 2003. What you're seeing is the Crane glacier which flowed out into the ice shelf. See how the end of the glacier has retreated so far back into the bay? The Larsen ...
