Red Orbit reports that “according to the UN Environmental Program, an enormous breakaway piece of Antarctica’s ice shelf could amplify the already significant effects of global warming in the region.

The 40-kilometer (25-mile) ice bridge – which was the Wilkins Ice Shelf’s last bridge to the coast – has now completely broken off and can be seen in satellite images as a free-floating island of ice roughly the size of Jamaica.

Before it starting melting in the early 1990’s, Wilkins Ice Shelf had an area of roughly 16,000 square kilometers or 6,000 square miles.  As early as last summer, the ice bridge was its last link to the Charcot and Latady islands.

UNEP officials speculate that the ice bridge may have been protecting the shelf and that the break-off of the ice bridge “may now allow ocean currents to wash away far more of the shelf.”

One of the important functions of the ice shelf has been to deflect sunlight rather than absorb it, thus helping to moderate global temperatures.  UNEP officer Christian Lambrechts expressed fears that the broken ice shelf may end-up “contributing to continued and accelerated (global) warming” as more area of the ocean’s surface are exposed to absorb sunlight.”

More in Red Orbit.