![]() ESA said icebergs are traditionally named from the Antarctic quadrant in which they were originally sighted, then a sequential number, then, if the iceberg breaks, a sequential letter. The name might sound a bit boring for the world’s largest iceberg, but it is based on science. Story by Kyle Almond, CNN Published 7:53 PM ET, Fri AugChinstrap and gentoo penguins climb an iceberg on Elephant Island off the coast of Antarctica. The huge chunk of ice is now officially known as the A-76. New giant #iceberg breaking away from the Ronne Ice Shelf 13-05-2021 roughly 160 km x 25 km satellite image from #Sentinel1 /LmacupcuUW- Keith Makinson May 13, 2021ĮSA said the iceberg was first spotted by Keith Makinson, a polar oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey last week and confirmed from the US National Ice Center using ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 imagery. If Antarctica’s entire ice sheet were to melt, it could raise sea levels by nearly 190 feet. That makes icebergs like this different from glaciers or ice sheets, which are found on land, and which do raise global sea levels when they break off into the ocean and melt. Once it melts, the new iceberg will not lead to a sea level rise, because it was part of a floating ice shelf – just like a melting ice cube doesn’t increase the level of the drink in your glass. Scientists aren’t attributing this particular break-off to climate change, and instead believe it’s part of the natural cycle of iceberg calving in the region. In other words, the iceberg among the largest in recorded history to splinter off the Antarctic continent is close to the size of Delaware and consists of almost four times as much ice as. Massive Iceberg Breaks Off in Antarctica but Experts Say It Wasnt Due to Climate Change By Sophie Hirsh Jan. Iceberg calving is part of the natural cycle, with huge chunks of ice breaking off the ice shelf at regular intervals. That makes it slightly larger than the Spanish island of Majorca, ESA said. The iceberg is shaped like a giant ironing board, measuring around 170 kilometers (105 miles) in length and 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) in width. The iceberg broke off the western side of the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Wednesday. Man-made global warming has already lifted average global air temperatures by about one degree Celsius since pre-industrial levels.Īntarctica is one of the world’s fastest-warming regions.The world’s largest iceberg has calved from Antarctica over the past few days, a giant floating piece of ice close to 80 times the size of Manhattan. 23, 2023, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the U.K.s national polar research institute, published a press release announcing that the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarcticas Weddell Sea calved a giant iceberg the evening prior, on Jan. Warming ocean water erodes the underbelly of the ice shelves while rising air temperatures weaken them from above. Ice sheets have the additional effect of depressing the elevation of the bedrock on which they sit due to their great weight. An iceberg the size of London has broken off of the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The calving of ice shelves occurs naturally, though global warming is believed to have accelerated the process. If the glaciers held in check by Larsen C spilt into the Antarctic Ocean, it would lift the global water mark by about 10 centimetres, researchers have said. The ice shelves act as giant brakes, preventing glaciers from flowing directly into the ocean. Several ice shelves have cracked around northern parts of Antarctica in recent years.īy itself, the massive iceberg will not add to sea levels when it melts, but scientists worry about the effects it will have on inland glaciers. Ice shelves are floating masses of ice, hundreds of metres thick, that are fed by slow-flowing glaciers from the land. ![]() ![]() The Larsen-C rift opening over the last 2 years from #Sentinel1 /MT9d3HAw1M The massive sheet of ice with an area nearly as large as the size of the US state of Delaware had been developing a crack across the Larsen C ice shelf over the past few years. “The calving occurred some time between Monday, July 10 and Wednesday, July 12, when a 5,800-square kilometre section of the ice shelf finally broke away,” Swansea University said in a statement on Wednesday. Satellite images confirmed that the trillion-tonne iceberg had broken away and was adrift at sea. One of the biggest icebergs in history has snapped off the West Antarctic ice shelf, according to scientists who have been monitoring a growing crack for months. Antarctica ice sheet breaks off: But while the breaking off of the iceberg is worrisome, experts caution that the glaciers behind it are the bigger problem.
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