2024-12-17 07:22:00
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Scientists have been keeping the ice giant under close observation
The world’s largest iceberg is on the move again, drifting across the Southern Ocean after months stuck in the same spot, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said.
Covering an area of 3,672 square kilometers in August measurements – slightly larger than the US state of Rhode Island – the A23a iceberg has been closely monitored by scientists since it broke off from the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in 1986.
It remained “bound” in the Antarctic Weddell Sea for more than 30 years, likely until it shrunk enough to loosen its grip on the seafloor, CNN reported.
The iceberg was then carried away by ocean currents before becoming stuck again in a Taylor pillar, the name given to a rotating vortex created when ocean currents collide with an underwater mountain.
Now that the iceberg has broken free, scientists expect it to continue moving along ocean currents toward warmer waters and the remote island of South Georgia, where it is likely to break up and eventually melt, BAS said in a statement Friday.
Since the 1980s, A23a has been awarded the title of “largest modern iceberg” several times, sometimes losing ground to larger but short-lived icebergs, including A68 in 2017 and A76 in 2021.
Scientists said that while this particular iceberg likely broke off as part of the ice shelf’s natural growth cycle and will not contribute to sea level rise, climate change is causing alarming changes on this vast, isolated continent that may have devastating consequences for global sea level rise.
During the iceberg’s journey, scientists studied its erosion and how sea ice can affect global carbon and nutrient cycles in the oceans.
“We know that these giant icebergs can provide nutrients to the waters they pass through, creating thriving ecosystems in other, less productive areas,” said Laura Taylor, a biogeochemist who collected water samples around the iceberg, BAS said in a statement. What we don’t know is how much influence specific icebergs, their size and their origin may have on this process. We sampled ocean surface water behind, immediately adjacent to, and ahead of the iceberg’s path. They should help us determine what kind of life may have formed around A23a and how this affects the ocean’s carbon content and its balance with the atmosphere.”
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