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One of the largest icebergs ever documented is still largely intact a year after breaking the Antarctic, although he lost a large chunk and his northern flank was broken. in pieces.
The huge block of ice, called A68 or A68a, calved from the Larsen C ice shelf in July 2017.
It's hard to say exactly when A68 was born because of limited satellite coverage and thick cloud cover. last year, between July 10th and 12th.
Scientists at the time felt that the A68 iceberg was the size of Maryland. It measured 1000 feet (300 meters) in thickness and weighed 1.1 million tonnes – about the weight of 20 million Titanic ships.
The A68 iceberg seems almost intact today; The satellites then watch as it floats in the Weddell Sea about 40 miles from the ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula
However, an animation shared by the Project Midas Antarctic Research Program shows that the berg was beaten .
"The iceberg has been repelled by ocean currents, tides and winds, and its northern end has been repeatedly anchored in shallower waters," wrote Monday the authors of an article on Project Midas project
. other pieces of the iceberg were destroyed in May 2018. Although they were not large enough to receive tags, the total area of icebergs lost from A-68 in May was the size of a small town.
The animation of the decay below shows part of the Antarctic Peninsula from March 12, 2017 to July 5, 2018. One can see a huge crack in the sliding of the Larsen C platform to the north until The iceberg breaks completely. ] [19] 659003] "In the last year A-68 has not drifted far due to the dense sea ice cover in the Weddell Sea," Project Midas said.
What will happen to the iceberg A68
Antarctic icebergs naturally calve as snow accumulates, forming Ultra-dense ice that gravity slides towards the ocean.
From there, a predictable but erratic story is played
The red lines illustrate the trajectories of previous icebergs Antarctic. (NASA Climate Record Pathfinder / ESA Scatterometer)
Most icebergs that calve from the Antarctic Peninsula are caught in the winds and currents that carry them north [19659003] Scientists can not be sure of where the A68 iceberg will float, although some believe that it could drift more than 1,600 kilometers north of the Falkland Islands.
The largest berg can even reach South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands before disappearing.
Martin O 'Leary, a researcher at the University of Swansea and Project Midas, said on Reddit last year that the A68 could take a few years.
It could run out several years before it melts completely.
In the case of B15, the second largest iceberg in history, the process took nearly two decades. B15 broke the Antarctic ice shelf of Ross in 2000.
It had an area of 4,200 square miles (10,800 square kilometers) – about the area of Jamaica and twice that of A68. Today, it floats in warm waters near South Georgia.
A warmer air causes the surface to melt "across the iceberg like a set of knives," said Kelly Brunt, a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Observatory in October 2017.
"This is often the end of the life cycle of many Antarctic icebergs."
Scientists continue to study and debate the causes of the rupture of the A68, including the role of climate change "For me, it is an unequivocal signature of the world. the impact of climate change on Larsen C, "said Eric Rignot, glaciologist at NASA JPL, at CNN in July 2017.
" This is not natural C & # 39; is the system response to a hotter climate up and down, nothing else can provoke it. "
This article was published by Business Insider.
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