Oslo — One of the biggest icebergs on record is like a "niggling tooth" about to snap off Antarctica and will be an extra hazard for ships around the frozen continent as it breaks up, scientists said on Wednesday. An area of the Larsen C ice shelf, about 5,000km² in size, is connected by just 13km of ice after a crack crept about 175km along the sheet, with a new jump in May. "It’s keeping us all on tenterhooks," Andrew Fleming, of the British Antarctic Survey, said of the lengthening and widening rift, adding "it feels like a niggling tooth" of a child as it comes loose. Ice shelves are flat-topped areas of ice floating on the sea at the end of glaciers. The Larsen C ice is about 200m thick with about 20m jutting above the water. Big icebergs break off Antarctica naturally, meaning scientists are not linking the rift to man-made climate change. The ice, however, is a part of the Antarctic peninsula that has warmed fast in recent decades. "There is no other evidence of change on the...
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