World’s Largest Free-Flowing Iceberg Threatens Wildlife On Atlantic Island – NRK Urix – Foreign Documentaries & News

When an iceberg gets its own name, you know it’s serious. It started out as a 5,800 square kilometer ice floe. On the way it was divided into three parts.

Most of it has been called A68a, and for the last three and a half years it has sailed to its own ruin. Since it broke off the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica, it has traveled 1,500 kilometers.

He is on his way to the island of South Georgia in the Southern Ocean, off Argentina. Icebergs often come here to die. But never before with this size.

Where icebergs come to die

The iceberg floats in an ocean current called the South Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This is one of the most important travel routes in Antarctica for ice. The ocean current often carries large icebergs around South Georgia.

The area is British territory. Icebergs are said to come here to die. The reason is that many of them are stranded in the shallow waters around the island. There they melt.

Smash the penguin dishes

Researchers hope the iceberg will flatten the seafloor on its way to the interior of the island and destroy underwater wildlife on its journey. It can be left stranded for up to 10 years before it completely melts.

Researchers are paying special attention to the A68a. It could block access to food for the island’s 2 million penguins.

Three species of penguins live on the island: ring penguin, ring penguin, and emperor penguin. The seals will also have to make longer trips to find food for their young.

– The weather couldn’t be worse. Many eggs hatch in late December. Penguins now need food for their chickens, British Antarctic Survey biologist Norman Ratcliffe tells Reuters.

Solid iceberg

“Nothing so great in the history of science has come to South Georgia,” said Geraint Tarling, an oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey.

Right now, the iceberg is 4,200 square kilometers in size. Therefore, it is larger than South Georgia.

According to Tarling, a flight over the iceberg takes about an hour and a half. So great is it that the Royal Air Force pilots this week failed to capture the entire mountain in one photo.

During the past 34 years, there have only been five icebergs larger than the A68a. The largest, the B-15, was 11,000 square kilometers when it fell off the Rossisen in Antarctica in 2000.

Uncertain about climate change

The iceberg comes from an area of ​​Antarctica that is still very cold: Isbremmen Larsen C, northwest of the Weddel Sea. But it’s hotter here too.

The Larsen A ice brake was disbanded in 1995. Larsen B disbanded in 2002. While Larsen C began to disband in 2016.

Opinions are divided as to whether it is due to global warming, says Elin Darelius Chiche. She is an oceanographer and associate professor at the UiB Bjerknes Center. She is investigating hot water against ice sheets in Antarctica.

– It is a natural process that is broken by icebergs. Happens all the time. But many believe that it is precisely Larsen C that breaks because more ice has melted on the surface there. But it is very uncertain. It is not easy to put two lines below.

Researchers have limited historical data on how ice behaves in Antarctica. Only when we obtained satellites was it possible to correctly observe the movements of the ice.

Antarctica is one of the fastest growing areas in the world. At the South Pole, temperatures have risen three times the world average over the past thirty years.

If all the ice in Antarctica had melted, that alone would have caused a sea level rise of 2.5 meters.