Greetings ASIF, long time lurker here, moved to post by the Larsen C event!
It is fascinating to read the media reaction: many glaciologists seem to be falling over themselves to say there is no reason to think there is any connect to climate change here. I find that weird. Anyway, what I wanted to ask about is this. Dr Adrian Luckman has several times cited a 2015 Scripps study (e.g., in today's Guardian and in theconversation.com) as measuring thickening of Larsen C. As I read the study, it says Larsen C is thinning:
"Volume loss from Antarctic ice shelves is accelerating", Paolo et al Science, 2015: "On the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula... the regional ice-shelf thinning rate of 3.8 ± 1.1 m/decade is about half of that on the western side. The onset of thinning for Larsen C has progressed southward, which is consistent with climate-driven forcing discussed in earlier studies. The highest thinning rates on Larsen C (with local maximum thinning of 16.6 ± 8.1 m/decade) are near Bawden Ice Rise."
The Bawden Ice Rise is exactly where the iceberg finally detached.
Secondly, until today I was following the Larsen C rift in the context of John Mercer's 1978 predictions. Today I looked into it a little more. The detachment point is around the -12C isotherm (
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240424228_Holocene_climate_and_glacial_history_of_the_northeastern_Antarctic_Peninsula_The_marine_sedimentary_record_from_a_long_SHALDRIL_core), whereas the shelves that have collapsed or started to collapse, consistent with Mercer's theory, to the north and west, are all markedly warmer, above the -9 C isotherm. The newspaper articles say there are no reports of surface meltwater on Larsen C.
So my question is, is there any mechanism by which warming of the air, even if it remains below freezing for most of the summer, could have weakened the shelf and contributed in some way?