A huge iceberg with an area equal to 15 times that of Paris, detached from Antarctica on Sunday, British scientists said Monday.
The ice block, which covers a total of 1,550 square kilometers, broke away from the pack ice between 7 and 8 p.m. Lisbon time on Sunday, during a tide that widened an existing gap, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), a research organization based in the polar regions, in a statement.
NEW satellite image of the huge iceberg that has calved off the Brunt Ice Shelf #Antarctica shows a clear break. Image was acquired late Monday by Suomi/NPP VIIRS satellite courtesy of @NASA pic.twitter.com/16go7kezUo
– British Antarctic Survey (@BAS_News) January 24, 2023
Two years ago, an iceberg of almost identical size had formed in the same area, called the Brunt Barrier, on which the British research station Halley VI is installed.
The glaciologists, who are on site from November to March, have been observing the increase of huge cracks in the ice for ten years.
In 2016, BAS had decided to move its station 20 kilometers, for fear that melting ice would end up on a floating iceberg.
“The detachment was expected and is a natural behavior of the Brunt barrier. It is not linked to climate change,” said glaciologist Dominic Hodgson, quoted in the text.
However, the continent is suffering the effects of global warming, with unprecedented temperatures in 2022, as in the rest of the planet.
The extent of the ice reached the minimum of 44 years of satellite records in February 2022, according to the recent annual report of the European climate change programme, Copernicus.
By 2021, the total melting of an iceberg four thousand miles from where it separated from the ice block had released more than 150 billion tons of fresh water mixed with nutrients by 2017, raising scientists’ concerns about the phenomenon’s impact on a fragile ecosystem.
Source: DN
