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The giant iceberg A-68A, whose trajectory could take it to waters off the island of San Pedro, in the South Atlantic Ocean, has broken into various pieces and melts at an average rate of about 2.5 centimeters per day, which makes that its shape is always changing, based on satellite tracking data.
This great mass of ice separated in 2017 from the Larsen ice shelf in Antarctica and, since then, has been monitored by satellites such as Sentinel-1 of the Copernicus program and Cryosat -both of the European Space Agency- and the Modis of The NASA.
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Since it was released, the average rate of melting has been 2.5 centimeters per day and now it discharges 767 cubic meters of fresh water per second into the surrounding ocean, which is equal to 12 times the river’s flow. Thames.
At its thickest section, the iceberg currently has a keel depth of 206 meters, making it “unlikely” that it will come much closer to the island until it thins or breaks.
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However, two relatively large fragments that broke off on December 21 “are considerably thinner”, with shallow keels, and therefore “pose the greatest immediate threat,” ESA said in a statement.
The iceberg worries scientists because for the past month it has been floating “dangerously close” to the South Georgia archipelago, which has a fragile ecosystem made up of rich flora and fauna, such as penguins and seals.
The future trajectory of A-68A depends on the depth of its keel in relation to the surrounding ocean, but due to its changing shape it has not been able to be determined exactly. The archipelago is in a remote part of the South Atlantic Ocean, but surrounded by relatively shallow shelf waters that extend tens of kilometers beyond its coast.
If the great mass of ice were to get too close it could cause a “massive release” of cold fresh water into the surrounding ocean, with significant environmental impacts. Scientists from the Center for Polar Observation and Modeling at the University of Leeds (UK) have made the first assessment of the iceberg’s changing shape.
Originally called A-68, when the iceberg broke away from the ice shelf, it was approximately twice the size of Luxembourg, but soon it lost a fragment, reducing its size and changing its name to A-68A.
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The images show that it has been reduced by half, from an initial area of 5,664 square kilometers to the current one of only 2,606. A large proportion of this loss has been through the creation of smaller fragments, some of which are still afloat. In addition, on average, it has lost 32 meters, although in some places that reduction is more than 50 meters – about a quarter of its initial thickness.
