The ocean north of Antarctica has became an “alphabet soup” of damaged icebergs, in line with a brand new weblog submit on NASA’s Earth Observatory web site.
In a satellite tv for pc picture snapped on Feb. 11, 2021, the jagged outlines of 11 fractured icebergs swirl round a distant, penguin-filled island referred to as South Georgia, situated about 940 miles (1,500 kilometers) northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Every frozen chunk is a chunk of the once-mighty iceberg A-68a, which held the title of world’s largest iceberg for greater than three years earlier than shattering right into a dozen items a number of weeks in the past. Now, every damaged little bit of the puzzle has its personal identify, starting with A-68b, and ending with A-68M. (A number of of the icebergs will not be seen on this picture.)
Associated: Photographs of soften: Earth’s vanishing ice
Iceberg A-68a initially broke off of Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf on July 12, 2017. On the time, it measured greater than 2,300 sq. miles (6,000 sq. kilometers) — massive sufficient to carry the 5 boroughs of New York Metropolis 5 occasions over. Regardless of its spectacular floor space, the berg was extremely skinny, and it started shedding massive chunks of ice starting in April 2020.
In late 2020, the berg seemed to be on a collision course with South Georgia island (a British abroad territory). Researchers feared that the berg would make landfall close to the island, slicing off the feeding routes for hundreds of seals, penguins and different animal residents of South Georgia and probably resulting in widespread famine.
Luckily, the berg modified course and started drifting across the island, even earlier than it shattered into the dozen-or-so chunks bobbing across the space in the present day. The risk to the island’s animals is over for now.
Nonetheless, British researchers are keen to check the damaged iceberg’s potential impression on the seawater round South Georgia. Two robotic submersibles are scheduled to check the water temperature, salinity and readability across the stays of A-68a (and all its offspring) for a number of months, starting later this yr, Reside Science beforehand reported.
Initially revealed on Reside Science.
