![]() ![]() Ice shelves are permanent floating sheets of ice connected to a landmass, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Or it could move with ocean currents and winds in a northward direction, where it will be eroded more quickly.Ī similar event happened 15 years ago with the dramatic break-up of part of the nearby Larsen B ice shelf. The iceberg - or icebergs if it breaks up ever further - may remain in the region, where the ocean is quite cold, sticking around for years or even decades. Scientists obtain radar images from orbiting European satellites using microwave energy. But the images themselves reveal nothing, and it is only by special processing of the data that scientists can track the iceberg, Luckman said.Īs for how long the iceberg will stick around, it depends on how quickly it moves to a warmer climate, and how quickly it breaks into smaller pieces. "It's the Antarctic winter now, and lack of sunlight means that no optical satellite data is being collected," Luckman said in June. The development of the rift over the past year was monitored using data from the European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellites, a radar-imaging system capable of acquiring images regardless of cloud cover, and throughout the current winter period of polar darkness. Unfortunately, there are no public websites allowing a live view of the iceberg or ice shelf. "We will continue to monitor both the impact of this calving event on the Larsen C ice shelf, and the fate of this huge iceberg." “We have been anticipating this event for months, and have been surprised how long it took for the rift to break through the final few kilometers (miles) of ice," Luckman said. Previously, he said the iceberg breaking off "will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula." The calving reduced the size of the ice shelf by some 12%. ![]() ![]() ![]() Some of the ice may remain in the area for decades, while parts of the iceberg may drift north into warmer waters." "The iceberg is one of the largest recorded and its future progress is difficult to predict," said Adrian Luckman, a professor of Swansea University and the lead investigator of Project MIDAS. "It may remain in one piece but is more likely to break into fragments. Now, the 120-mile crack first spotted in 2011 finally made its way back to the sea, "calving" off the massive berg. Over the past several months, an ever-lengthening and widening crack in the ice shelf captivated the world. At 2,200 square miles, the chunk of floating ice is nearly the size of Delaware. The 1 trillion ton iceberg, with twice of the volume of Lake Erie, broke off from the Larsen C ice shelf between Monday and Wednesday, according to Project MIDAS, which has been monitoring the shelf. The polar-orbiting satellite circles the globe 14 times daily and captures a complete daytime view of our planet once every 24 hours.One of the largest icebergs ever recorded broke off from an ice shelf in Antarctica, British scientists announced Wednesday. Multiple visible and infrared channels allow it to detect atmospheric aerosols, such as dust, smoke and haze associated with industrial pollution and fires. This image was captured by the NOAA-20 satellite's VIIRS instrument, which scans the entire Earth twice per day at a 750-meter resolution. Even though smaller icebergs are still technically very large, Readinger explained that they have to draw the line somewhere. National Ice Center tracks icebergs that are larger than 26.5 square miles otherwise they are considered too small. To put this in perspective, this area was larger than the state of Delaware. It was 160 x 20 nautical miles (184 x 23 miles), with an estimated area of 11,000 square kilometers (roughly 4,250 square miles). The largest iceberg ever recorded during the satellite era was B-15, which broke off the Ross Ice Shelf in late March of 2000. A-68C is roughly 11 x 7 nautical miles (~100 square miles in area) in size, an area equivalent to Milwaukee, Wis. Despite having just lost this new significant chunk of ice, A-68A is still the largest iceberg currently floating on Earth. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |