Live Science reported in April that the Thwaites Glacier, or the "Doomsday Glacier," was discovered to be melting faster than previously thought. But not all parts of West Antarctica have been quite so lucky. The Ronne Ice Shelf, which birthed the recent iceberg, is mostly spared from influxes of warm water that disrupt the Antarctic's natural cycle of ice calving and regrowth. The rogue berg shattered into a dozen pieces before it caused any harm, Live Science previously reported. After splitting from the Antarctic ice sheet in 2017, A-68A was set loose by ocean currents in 2020 and came perilously close to colliding with South Georgia Island, a breeding ground for seals and penguins. Satellites will continue to track the new iceberg, much as they did for A-68A, the previous title holder for the world's largest iceberg. "It's important to monitor the frequency of all iceberg calving, but these are all expected for now." One of Antarctica's most important glaciers is holding on 'by its fingernails' as warming temperatures around the globe threaten to cause further deterioration, which could then destabilize the glaciers in the entire region. "Because A68A took a common route across the Drake Passage, we hope to learn more about icebergs taking a similar trajectory, and how they influence the polar oceans."A76 and A74 are both just part of natural cycles on ice shelves that hadn't calved anything big for decades," Laura Gerrish, a researcher at the British Antarctic Survey, wrote on Twitter. "The next thing we want to learn is whether it had a positive or negative impact on the ecosystem around South Georgia," Braakmann-Folgmann said. What that means for the environment in the long term is not known.
Scientists believe that will change or produce new plankton in the area, which affects the local food chain. The cold freshwater drifts with the oceans currents, so the mixture with the salty warm waters will release nutrients into the waters. Luckily, the melting was enough to break the iceberg so it's "less of a risk in terms of blockage" of the island, but it still could have a significant effect. Scientists say it may speed up global warming. It broke off from the northern region of Antarctica's Brunt Ice. Rain: The Arctic will soon see more rain than snow. The iceberg, called A-74, covers about 490 square miles (1,270 square kilometers), making it 1.5 times bigger than Greater Paris. "Doomsday" glacier: Collapse of Florida-sized glacier may happen soon, raising sea levels and threatening coastal cities At its peak, 22 feet of ice melted each month. When the iceberg approached the island, it dropped in thickness from 771 feet to 219 feet, most of which occurred from November 2020 to January 2021.īy April 2021, it had completely melted, totaling 992 billion tons of ice lost in its 2,485-mile journey since it broke off in 2017. The melting was the result of the iceberg's movement from the cold waters along the Drake Passage to the warmer Scotia Sea near the island. "This is a huge amount of melt water," Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, a researcher at the University of Leeds in England and Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, said in a statement. Part of the Thwaites Glacier, it is the size of Florida and.
#ANTARCTICA ICEBERG BREAKING OFF EFFECTS CRACK#
The findings are set to be published in the March 1 edition of Remote Sensing of Environment. The front portion of the doomsday glacier in Antarctica has an alarming crack that could lead to it breaking off in just five years. That would be enough water to fill 61 million Olympic-size swimming pools. The Larsen Ice Shelf is a long ice shelf in the northwest part of the Weddell Sea, extending along the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula from Cape Longing to Smith Peninsula. The team found the iceberg had released more than 167 billion tons of water around the island in three months. Larsen Ice Shelves A, B, C, and D Location of the Antarctic Peninsula within Antarctica. A collision could have seriously damaged the island's ecosystem, including killing wildlife.Ī team of international scientists then examined the size and thickness of the iceberg since it first broke off using three satellites. Scientists said the iceberg broke apart just before it could have hit the seabed.
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