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NASA ICEBRIDGE / Brooke Medley
Icebergs empty from the front of glaciers that end in the sea
This week's scientists examined for the first time the new giant iceberg of the Pine Island Glacier (PIG) in Antarctica.
The block, designated B-46, initially covered 225 km2.
Given the trend of recent years comparing such icebergs to the Manhattan Island area, it would have been about three times larger than the famous New York City area.
But NASA's flight over Wednesday shows that the iceberg is already separating.
The US space agency DC-8 was participating in a routine expedition as part of the IceBridge project, which measures the elevation of ice surfaces with the aid of a laser.
The onboard researchers were able to point their cameras through the windows of the aircraft and capture some of the magnitude and beauty of the frozen scene below.
The GIP drains a large area of western Antarctica that equates to roughly two-thirds of the United Kingdom's area. The glacier regularly attracts large pieces of its floating front, or plateau, which empties into the Amundsen Sea.
This iceberg left in October and was first noticed by satellites.
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LANDSAT / EARTH OBSERVATORY OF NASA-USGS
This last iceberg was detached from the pork in October
The production of icebergs on the periphery of an ice floe fits into a very natural process.
This is so that a glacier system like Pine Island maintains its balance: the ejection of icebergs inevitably follows the accumulation of snow in the land.
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NASA ICEBRIDGE / Kate Ramsayer
Sea ice forms in a fault created when the B-46 is separated from the PIG
That said, the PIG has been under scrutiny as it has shown signs of thinning and acceleration.
Long-term satellite studies indicate that the country has dumped considerable amounts of ice in Amundsen Bay, causing the sea level to rise around the world.
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NASA ICEBRIDGE
The GIP drains an area of West Antarctica that is about two-thirds the size of the United Kingdom
The name of the new iceberg comes from a classification system run by the US National Ice Center, which divides Antarctica into quadrants.
Quadrant A covers the Amundsen sea area and this block is the 46th in the series. The latter – and all the big girls blocks – will have to be tracked because of the potential risks to navigation.
B-46 is dominated by the mighty A-68 berg, which detached from the Larsen C ice shelf in 2017. It covers an area of approximately 6,000 km2.
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