“Because ice shelves already float in the ocean, they do not contribute directly to sea level rise when they break up,” the National Snow and Ice Data Centre said.
It is different from when ice breaks off from glaciers and melts into the ocean, causing sea levels to rise. The Ronne Ice Shelf is one of the largest bodies of floating ice, and ice calving is part of a natural cycle. But some ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have undergone rapid disintegration in recent years, a phenomenon scientists believe may be related to climate change, according to the US National Snow & Ice Data Centre. Periodic calving of large chunks of those shelves is part of a natural cycle. The Ronne Ice Shelf on the flank of the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the largest of several enormous floating sheets of ice that connect to the continent's land mass and extend into the surrounding seas. It surpasses the now second-placed A-23A, which is about 3,380 sq km in size and is also floating in the Weddell Sea.
The slab, which broke away from Antarctica's Ronne Ice Shelf, ranks as the largest existing iceberg on the planet. The newly calved berg, designated A-76 by scientists, was spotted in satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, the space agency posted on its website with a photo of the enormous, oblong ice sheet. Spain's popular tourist island of Majorca in the Mediterranean occupies 3,640 sq km, while the US state of Rhode Island has a land mass of only 2,678 sq km. It measures 175 km in length and 25 km in breadth, the European Space Agency said on Wednesday.īy comparison, the capital of the United Arab Emirates has an area of 972 sq km. Its surface area spans 4,320 square kilometres. () The US Geological Survey (USGS) has found that every ice front in the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula-the coldest part-has been retreating overall for the past sixty years with the greatest changes visible since 1990.A giant slab of ice, more than four times the size of Abu Dhabi, has broken off from the frozen edge of Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest iceberg afloat in the world. Thanks to my parents’ ability to tell the difference between experts and non-experts, I survived.Ĭlimate change melting southern Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves Instead they took me to see a medical doctor-someone who had studied that science for at least twelve years-and I was quickly given injections and put on antibiotics. () As a child when I came down with pneumonia my parents did not rush me to see a policeman, a cattle rancher, or a local businessman. James Inhofe is not a climatologist: a journalist’s perspective The Mertz Glacier tongue breaks off on 20 February 2010. Iceberg B9B makes contact with the Mertz Glacier tongue on 7 February 2010. Rob Massom, a senior scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center in Hobart, Tasmania, who is involved with the monitoring told Reuters the calving isn’t directly linked to climate change, but is “related to the natural processes occurring on the ice sheet.”ī9B approaches the Mertz Glacier tongue on 7 January 2010 Polynyas “constitute places of high biodiversity and food concentration for birds and marine mammals, in particular emperor penguins the only birds to reproduce during winter in Antarctica,” according to a statement released by LEGOS. Scientists with LEGOS in Toulouse, France, note that the free-floating iceberg may disrupt the emergence of large area of ice-free areas-termed polynyas-during winter months. Icebergs can affect so-called “deep water formation”, which drive ocean currents, as well as sea ice formation, which has repercussions for marine-life ranging from krill to penguins. Researchers are now tracking its movement and hoping to monitor the impact on the marine environment. The 78-km-long and 39-km-wide iceberg broke off from Mertz Glacier, which drains the East Antarctic ice sheet, earlier this month when another 97-km-long iceberg (known as “B9B”) collided with the tongue of the glacier. The separation could impact ocean circulation and affect marine life say researchers. An iceberg the size of Luxembourg broke off from Antarctica after it was hit by another iceberg, reports Reuters.
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