Less certain is how this vibrant ecosystem will fare now that the iceberg has broken away. Many deep-sea dwellers are adapted to unchanging conditions found in their environment, so they are highly sensitive to even small environmental shifts. For the life-forms uncovered in Bellingshausen Sea, the dramatic loss of their former iceberg ceiling may rock their ecosystem.
Sasha Montelli says that the floating ice shelf that the iceberg broke away from has retreated inland by about 25 miles (40 km) over the past 50 years—just one example of accelerating ice loss on the continent. “The ice loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet is a major contributor to sea level rise worldwide,” Montelli said in the recent press release. “Our work is critical for providing longer-term context of these recent changes, improving our ability to make projections of future change.”
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