ET: This article was updated with a statement from Dominic Hodgson.A major crack appeared in the Antarctic ice giant, A68a, once the world’s biggest iceberg, as captured in satellite images since January 25, 2021. "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 ," Dominic Hodgson, a British Antarctic Survey glaciologist, said in a statement.ĭo you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about Antarctic icebergs? Let us know via 01/24/23, 9:18 a.m. Scientists in Antarctica will monitor the ice sheet for any further activity. National Ice Center, and is likely to follow the path of A74 as it drifts into the ocean. The new iceberg is due to be named by the U.S. This is a natural and regular occurrence." Gudmundsson agreed: "Ice shelves lose mass by periodically large chunks breaking off. "But this is just the way that ice shelves work, and there is no evidence that climate change has hastened this particular calving event." "Brunt ice shelf has just transitioned from one of its largest known extents to one of its smallest," Luckmann said. Indeed, the Brunt ice shelf had reached a larger size than it had for many years, meaning that a significant calving was due. While climate change and the warming atmosphere have led to many cases of glaciers and ice sheets melting prematurely, experts agree that this particular calving is part of the natural cycle of the Antarctic ice sheet. Winter storm could freeze you to death before you even know it. ![]() Himalayan plateau is about to fall apart due to thawing permafrost.Coldest known place on Earth revealed by NASA.Greenland Frozen Landscape Becoming 'A Dying Relic of Past Ice Ages'.Sexism and Homophobia Reach Every Continent."It might cause some changes in velocities across the ice shelf, but I'm not expecting this to have an impact on the upstream grounded ice feeding the ice shelf." "This is unlikely to have a large impact on the grounded part of the ice sheet," Hilmar Gudmundsson, a professor of glaciology at Northumbria University in the U.K., told Newsweek. The rest of the ice sheet will be relatively unaffected, however. "We will be watching closely to see if that stabilizes, or more likely also calves away in the next few weeks," he said. Luckman explained that there is at least one part of the remaining shelf, about half of the size of the new iceberg that is now vulnerable to calving. In any event the impact is likely to be small and will take some time to be felt," Luckman said. "Whether this calving has any impact on the ice sheet itself will depend upon how the rest of the shelf reacts to the changes that have just occurred. Last night, the crack Chasm-1 fully extended through the 150m thick ice - a decade after BAS scientists first detected that cracks in the ice sheet were growing.ġ/2 /68f0scdPAi- British Antarctic Survey January 23, 2023 "It has been known for some years a rupture would occur, and there have been significant size icebergs from this area before," Bigg said.Īt nearly 600 square miles across, this iceberg is nearly twice as large as New York City, which has an area of 302.6 square miles.Ī new iceberg the size of Greater London has calved from Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf. The breakaway of this section has been expected for a while, so its eventual occurrence comes as no surprise. Bigg, an emeritus professor of Earth system science at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., told Newsweek. "Large ice sheets around Antarctica do occasionally calve large icebergs, just as part of the natural process of the ice moving towards the sea," Grant R. ![]() Coastal temperatures can rise as high as 50 F in summer months. It holds the record for the coldest place on planet Earth, with temperatures of -128.6 F having been measured on July 21, 1983, on the Antarctic Plateau, at the then-Soviet-operated Vostok station. ![]() Antarctica is considered a desert, receiving only around 8 inches of precipitation each year at the coasts, with even less inland. Geological Survey.Īntarctica is the coldest and driest continent on Earth, containing around 70 percent of the planet's freshwater frozen inside enormous ice sheets. British Antarctic Survey / NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. The exact shape of the new iceberg will be confirmed by satellite in the coming days. A picture of the Brunt ice shelf (left) and a satellite image of the shelf from space, with the rough area of the new iceberg that broke off drawn on in red, following the path of Chasm-1.
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