PLEASE NOTE ISSUED UNDER EMBARGO – NO USE BEFORE 19.00PM BST
The calving front of part of the Filchner Ronne Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, which extends for some 800 km. See SWNS story SWICE; Experts have discovered an ice region in Antarctica is melting so rapidly it is affecting the Earth’s GRAVITATIONAL FIELD. Global warming has altered the wind direction resulting in different current patterns in the sea – shifting warmer waters towards the ice. Up until 2009 the glaciers in the Southern Antarctic Peninsula showed no sign of change, but new research has revealed ice is melting at an alarming rate. Multiple glaciers, some up to 750km in length, have suddenly started to shed ice into the ocean at a nearly constant rate of about 55 trillion litres of water, each year.