Abstract
Abstract Satellite imagery of the peripheral areas of West Antarctica taken in 1986–1987 revealed the calving of a large number of giant icebergs from the Filchner, Larsen, Thwaites and Ross ice shelves. Their total volume amounted to about 9150 km3, which exceeds the mean annual volume of icebergs discharged from the area by nearly an order of magnitude. The formation of so many giant icebergs suggests a common cause, which we assume to be the significant reduction in the area of sea ice since the early 1970s. The sea ice is in a complex interrelationship with the Ice Sheet; it may serve as a damper to triggering impulses from the ocean, but can also serve as a triggering mechanism itself through impacts or pressure. But in that no signs of general disintegration have been found thus far in the ice shelves or the Antarctic Ice Sheet, the calving of the giant icebergs is considered to be a random process.
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