Larsen B Ice Shelf Breakup
Over a 35-day period in early 2002, Antarctica's Larsen B ice shelf lost a total of about 1,255 square miles, one of the largest shelf retreats ever recorded. This image, captured by NASA's MODIS satellite sensor on February 23, shows the shelf mid-disintegration, spewing a cloud of icebergs adrift in the Weddell Sea. In December 2007, a team of National Geographic explorers will begin a five-week expedition across the continent's Larsen ice shelf to study how global warming is changing the topography of Antarctica.
A group of gentoo penguins nests on an icy shore of Cierva Cove, Antarctica. The continent is home to a number of penguin species, including Adélie, chinstrap, emperor, gentoo, and rock hopper.
Global warming is forcing ice shelves to calve, producing icebergs like this monolith jutting into the waters of the Antarctic Peninsula. National Geographic's Larsen Ice Shelf Expedition team will examine calving shelves and the bergs they spawn, determining how shelves fragment and how diminishing ice mass affects the world's oceans and climate.
An Antarctic gentoo chick stays near its parent for warmth. Gentoos are the fastest underwater swimming birds and can reach speeds of 22 miles an hour (36 kilometers an hour). Scientists worry that warming temperatures will encroach on penguin habitats, threatening their populations across Antarctica.
Icebergs drift across Antarctica's Neumeyer Channel. The Larsen Ice Shelf Expedition team predicts melting Antarctic shelves and bergs will raise sea levels around the world, flooding hundreds of thousands of square miles and displacing tens of millions of people. The team will collect evidence from their expedition to better understand how global warming is changing the continent and how we can prepare ourselves for its effects.
Glacier Advance
A stark white lobe of a glacier advances across Antarctica's dry valleys region, so called because of its scarcity of snow. Earth's fifth-largest continent contains more than two-thirds of the world's freshwater in the form of ice, yet some areas receive less than two inches (five centimetres) of precipitation a year.
Penguins on Shore
Large Iceberg
Penguin and Chick
Neumeyer Channel
