Smash hit

He said that while the northern sections of the Antarctic Peninsula have undergone temperature rises of up to 3C in the last 50 years, the quantity of ice there is, by the standards of the rest of continent, small.

In the Eastern Antarctic, the biggest region, data is extremely limited and many of the trends identified by researchers are disputed.

It is thought to be stable, at least at present, though some researchers believe there are some signs of a slight overall rise in temperatures, particularly in coastal areas.

Conversely, measurements at the South Pole suggest that temperatures there have fallen in recent years and snowfall across the Eastern Antarctic is believed to have risen recently.

The loss of the Wilkins ice shelf is, nevertheless, a concern for researchers because it is further evidence of the changes global warming is wreaking on the natural world.

The rapidity with which it is being destroyed is the biggest surprise and while the coming winter is likely to delay its disappearance it is thought to be unlikely to last more than a handful of summers.

“I would be very surprised if there was much of the Wilkins ice shelf left after ten years,” said Professor Vaughan. “I would guess it will last a few seasons but it could be almost instantaneous.”

Warmer sea and air temperatures have eaten away at the ice shelf for at least a decade already - since 1998 an estimated 1,000 square miles have melted.

An ocean swell caused by a storm several thousand miles away, perhaps from the other end of the world, is believed to have been the “starw that broke the camel’s back” and caused widespread and sudden cracking that broke up a large section.

Research is now underway to establish when and where the likely storm took place.

Professor Doug MacAyeal, of the University of Chicago in the United States, previously carried out research which demonstrated an iceberg in the Antarctic was broken up by a storm off the Alaska coast. He is now heading an investigation to find out when and where a storm might have taken place to destroy the Wilkins ice shelf.

“Generally speaking a strom that could cause the break up is more likely to have taken place thousands of miles away than close by,” he said.

With a rise in the intensity of storms believed to be an effect of global warming he said it was possible that a storm which broke up the ice shelf was itself fuelled by warmer temperatures.

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