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Events in the year 2002 in the Antarctica .
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Events in the year 2002 in the Antarctica .
Members of the Antarctic Treaty System officially adopt a new emblem, which would go on to be used as the flag that represented Antarctica occasionally, however; this emblem represents the Antarctic Treaty and not the continent itself. [1]
In the first three months of the year, [2] the 3,250 square kilometer (1,250 square mile) Larsen B Ice Shelf splintered and collapsed. [3] [4]
The geography of Antarctica is dominated by its south polar location and, thus, by ice. The Antarctic continent, located in the Earth's southern hemisphere, is centered asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle. It is washed by the Southern Ocean or, depending on definition, the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. It has an area of more than 14 million km2. Antarctica is the largest ice desert in the world.
The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on Earth. The continent is also extremely dry, averaging 166 mm (6.5 in) of precipitation per year. Snow rarely melts on most parts of the continent, and, after being compressed, becomes the glacier ice that makes up the ice sheet. Weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent, because of the katabatic winds. Most of Antarctica has an ice-cap climate with extremely cold and dry weather.
An ice shelf is a large floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Ice shelves are only found in Antarctica, Greenland, Northern Canada, and the Russian Arctic. The boundary between the floating ice shelf and the anchor ice that feeds it is the grounding line. The thickness of ice shelves can range from about 100 m (330 ft) to 1,000 m (3,300 ft).
The Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is the segment of the continental ice sheet that covers West Antarctica, the portion of Antarctica on the side of the Transantarctic Mountains that lies in the Western Hemisphere. The WAIS is classified as a marine-based ice sheet, meaning that its bed lies well below sea level and its edges flow into floating ice shelves. The WAIS is bounded by the Ross Ice Shelf, the Ronne Ice Shelf, and outlet glaciers that drain into the Amundsen Sea.
The Larsen Ice Shelf is a long ice shelf in the northwest part of the Weddell Sea, extending along the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula from Cape Longing to Smith Peninsula. It is named after Captain Carl Anton Larsen, the master of the Norwegian whaling vessel Jason, who sailed along the ice front as far as 68°10' South during December 1893. In finer detail, the Larsen Ice Shelf is a series of shelves that occupy distinct embayments along the coast. From north to south, the segments are called Larsen A, Larsen B, and Larsen C by researchers who work in the area. Further south, Larsen D and the much smaller Larsen E, F and G are also named.
The Amery Ice Shelf is a broad ice shelf in Antarctica at the head of Prydz Bay between the Lars Christensen Coast and Ingrid Christensen Coast. It is part of Mac. Robertson Land. The name "Cape Amery" was applied to a coastal angle mapped on 11 February 1931 by the British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) under Douglas Mawson. He named it for William Bankes Amery, a civil servant who represented the United Kingdom government in Australia (1925–28). The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names interpreted this feature to be a portion of an ice shelf and, in 1947, applied the name Amery to the whole shelf.
Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf is an ice shelf about 250 miles (400 km) long on the coast of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, extending from Cape Norvegia in the north to Lyddan Island and Stancomb-Wills Glacier in the south.
The Nordenskjöld Coast is located on the Antarctic Peninsula, more specifically Graham Land, which is the top region of the Peninsula. The Peninsula is a thin, long ice sheet with an Alpine-style mountain chain. The coast consists of 15m tall ice cliffs with ice shelves.
Antarctica is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of 14,200,000 km2 (5,500,000 sq mi). Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi).
Ice calving, also known as glacier calving or iceberg calving, is the breaking of ice chunks from the edge of a glacier. It is a form of ice ablation or ice disruption. It is the sudden release and breaking away of a mass of ice from a glacier, iceberg, ice front, ice shelf, or crevasse. The ice that breaks away can be classified as an iceberg, but may also be a growler, bergy bit, or a crevasse wall breakaway.
O Sétimo Selo, is a book written by the Portuguese journalist and writer José Rodrigues dos Santos. It has sold 140,000 copies.
Crane Glacier, is a narrow glacier which flows 30 miles (50 km) in an east-northeasterly direction along the northwest side of Aristotle Mountains to enter Spillane Fjord south of Devetaki Peak, on the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Sir Hubert Wilkins photographed this feature from the air in 1928 and gave it the name "Crane Channel", after C.K. Crane of Los Angeles, reporting that it appeared to be a channel cutting in an east-west direction across the peninsula. The name was altered to "Crane Inlet" following explorations along the west coast of the peninsula in 1936 by the British Graham Land Expedition, which proved that no through channel from the east coast existed as indicated by Wilkins. Comparison of Wilkins' photograph of this feature with those taken in 1947 by the Falklands Islands Dependencies Survey shows that Wilkins' "Crane Channel" is this glacier, although it lies about 75 miles (120 km) northeast of the position originally reported by Wilkins.
Flask Glacier, is a gently-sloping glacier, 25 nautical miles long, flowing east from Bruce Plateau to enter Scar Inlet between Daggoo Peak and Spouter Peak in Graham Land, Antarctica. The lower reaches of this glacier were surveyed and photographed by the Falklands Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) in 1947. The entire glacier was photographed by the Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition in 1955–56, and mapped by the FIDS in 1957. It was named by the UK Antarctic Place-names Committee after the third mate on the Pequod in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; or, The White Whale.
Wilkins Sound is a seaway in Antarctica that is largely occupied by the Wilkins Ice Shelf. It is located on the southwest side of the Antarctic Peninsula between the concave western coastline of Alexander Island and the shores of Charcot Island and Latady Island farther to the west.
Evans Glacier is a gently-sloping glacier 15 nautical miles (28 km) long and 4 nautical miles (7 km) wide, draining the southeast slopes of Travnik Buttress eastwards between Rugate Ridge and Poibrene Heights to flow into Vaughan Inlet on the east coast of Graham Land, Antarctica. It was discovered by Sir Hubert Wilkins in an aerial flight, December 20, 1928, and named "Evans Inlet" by him for E.S. Evans of Detroit. A further survey by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1955 reported that this low-lying area is not an inlet, but is formed by the lower reaches of Hektoria Glacier and the feature now described.
The Riiser-Larsen Sea is one of the marginal seas located in the Southern Ocean off East Antarctica and south of the Indian Ocean. It is delimited Astrid Ridge in the west and the Gunnerus Ridge and the Kainanmaru Bank in the east. It is bordered by the Lazarev Sea to the west and the Cosmonauts Sea to the east, or between 14°E and 30°E. Its northern border is defined to be the 65th parallel south. The name, proposed by the Soviet Union, was never officially approved by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO).
Queen Elizabeth Land is a portion of mainland Antarctica named by the government of the United Kingdom and claimed as part of the British Antarctic Territory. Situated south of Weddell Sea and between longitudes 20°W and 80°W, stretching from Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf to the South Pole. It is bordered by Zumberge Coast of Ellsworth Land to the West and by Hercules Inlet to the Northwest. To the Northeast, circle of latitude 82°S is the dividing line against Coats Land. The area of Queen Elizabeth Land was unnamed until 2012, though most of it was unofficially known as Edith Ronne Land in 1947–68 and includes areas claimed by the United Kingdom, Chile and Argentina.
Iceberg A-68 was a giant tabular iceberg adrift in the South Atlantic, having calved from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf in July 2017. By 16 April 2021, no significant fragments remained.
