Once huge blocks of ice have formed, icebergs occasionally detach as a result of marine currents, temperature changes and other environmental factors. Antarctica: An iceberg nearly the size of Atlanta just broke off a glacier CNN An iceberg nearly the size of Atlanta just broke off a glacier in Antarctica By Dominic Rech. Spotted in recent images captured by the. Icebergs and the two polar caps account for approximately 70% of all fresh water on the planet.Įxperts in the field estimate that icebergs are formed in temperatures of up to -89C (-128F), far below the frozen water in places where sunlight rarely reaches. The iceberg, dubbed A-76, measures around 4320 sq km in size currently making it the largest berg in the world. City-size lake found miles below Antarcticas biggest ice sheet. Mostly originating from Greenland and Antarctica, icebergs are wandering masses which float around the earth’s two poles. Read more: Scientists discover 1 million-year-old DNA sample lurking beneath Antarctic seafloor. “And at the end of December, Antarctic sea ice extent stood at the lowest in the 45-year satellite record.” What are icebergs? “While the decline in Antarctic sea ice extent is always steep at this time of year, it has been unusually rapid this year,” the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported earlier this month. Our science and operational teams continue to monitor the ice shelf in real-time to ensure it is safe, and to maintain the delivery of the science we undertake at Halley,” said BAS glaciologist Professor Dominic Hodgson. “ This calving event has been expected and is part of the natural behavior of the Brunt Ice Shelf. It measures about 43 miles by 28 miles, almost the size of Rhode Island, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. When an iceberg breaks from an ice shelf, an adjustment in the flow of ice into the ice shelf follows, which may influence the behavior of other cracks in the area and contribute to destabilization of the Brunt Ice Shelf over time.Full screen Huge iceberg breaks off in the Antarctic EUROPEAN UNION, COPERNICUS SENTI EUROPEAN UNION via REUTERS “This calving event has been expected and is part of the natural behavior of the Brunt Ice Shelf,” Glaciologist Dominic Hodgson said. A big iceberg roughly the size of Greater London has broken away from the Antarctic, close to Britains Halley research station. USNIC has been compiling the latitude, longitude, and general size of icebergs seen during the routine monitoring of sea ice conditions around the Antarctic continent since 1978 and. The name of the iceberg refers to the region it first calved from. Method: Ice Analysts use a combination of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), visible, and infrared remotely sensed imagery in Antarctica to locate and track icebergs. A huge ice block has broken off from western Antarctica into the Weddell Sea. Antarcticas melting Doomsday glacier could raise sea levels by 10 feet, scientists say - ABC News Antarcticas melting Doomsday glacier could raise sea levels by 10 feet, scientists say The loss of the Thwaites glacier could destabilize western Antarctica. Now researchers have mapped the ground underneath the glacier for the first time, to see how it will evolve in the future. Unlike the Larsen C Ice Shelf - which had extensive surface meltwater at the time of its collapse in 2017 - there is no evidence that climate change played a significant role in the changes with the Brunt Ice Shelf. When ice shelves like Larsen C are lost, it allows land-based ice to flow into the ocean more quickly, contributing to sea-level rise.įact check: Greenhouse gases are a driving factor in global warming, contrary to post An enormous iceberg, a little bigger than the state of Rhode Island, has broken off of Antarctica. The space agency said that the surface area of the iceberg is 1,668 square miles, measuring 106 miles long and 15 miles wide. The iceberg, dubbed A-76, measures around 4320 sq km in size currently making it the largest berg in the world. GPS instruments surrounding the station take multiple daily measurements of the ice shelf and researchers' observations provide key information on atmospheric and space weather in a climate-sensitive zone. The BAS Halley Research Station, which relocated 14 miles inland of Chasm-1 a few years ago after it began to widen, was unaffected by the recent break off. With six Halley research stations on the Brunt Ice Shelf since 1956 – the calving event, although unexpected time-wise, has long been anticipated. Scientists at British Antarctic Survey (BAS) who monitor the behavior of the ice shelf - the part of a land-based ice sheet that floats on the ocean - first observed this crack extending in 2012 after having been dormant for some decades, according to the European Space Agency.
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