The area of the iceberg that broke away from Antarctica. An iceberg the size of a quarter of the Moscow region has broken off from Antarctica. Yes, there were blocks in our time, not like today
Chairman of the polar commission of the Russian Geographical Society, Viktor Boyarsky, in an interview with the Nation News news agency, spoke about whether the breakaway iceberg poses a threat to shipping and whether this event will affect the balance of nature.
“A large piece, of course, has broken off. Now it will be washed out into the ocean, it will begin to wander until it melts. There will be certain warnings about this to ships, because it, of course, poses a danger to navigation, like any large floating object,” noted the famous traveler and polar explorer.
Viktor Ilyich confirmed that in Antarctica there is a fairly active decrease in the ice area: glaciers are breaking off and collapsing. The scientist emphasized that in East Antarctica the situation is reversed, so that in nature everything is in balance. In his opinion, a huge piece breaking off is not an unusual phenomenon, since such icebergs form regularly.
“Well, where should they go: a mass of ice is pressing from above, the glacier is melting, pieces are breaking off, large or small. And since it is getting warmer now, more precipitation is falling, the pressure is higher, the break-offs have become more frequent, but there is nothing extraordinary. It will take quite a while for it to melt a lot of time while he's swimming in the ocean."
The honorary polar explorer of Russia concluded that if this piece of ice floe washes ashore, it will be able to freeze again and thus continue its “existence.” As for storms, according to a professional traveler, they are not scary for an iceberg.
Nation News reported. tons, which broke off from the Larsen S glacier in Antarctica. According to preliminary data, its area is six thousand square kilometers.
This did not come as a surprise to scientists, since they had been expecting this event for more than ten years and carefully monitored the process.
The Larsen B ice shelf is on the verge of extinction and, according to preliminary estimates, nothing will remain of it by 2020. The Larsen A ice shelf existed until 1995, after which it was completely destroyed.
A natural event of enormous proportions, which scientists have been waiting for the last few years, happened: on the morning of Wednesday, June 12, it became known that in the west of Antarctica a gigantic part of the Larsen C glacier had broken off, resulting in the formation of one of the greatest icebergs in history. Its mass is a trillion tons, its area is about 6 thousand square meters. km, which is comparable to a quarter of the territory of Wales. The British Antarctic project MIDAS reported that the iceberg had broken off.
You can monitor the position of the iceberg in real time thanks to NASA satellite .
In 1893, the Norwegian captain and founder of Antarctic whaling, Karl, explored the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula on the ship Jason. Later, the huge ice wall along which the captain sailed was called the Larsen Ice Shelf.
The area of the Larsen S glacier is 55 thousand square meters. km, which is almost ten times the area of the previously melted Larsen B. Today, Larsen C is considered the fourth largest glacier in the world.
Scientists expected the giant iceberg to break off. The crack was first noticed back in 2011, and in 2014 it began to grow rapidly. The break stretched for almost 200 km, separating an iceberg of 10% of its area from the main body of the glacier.
“This crack continues to grow and will eventually cause a significant portion of the glacier to break away like an iceberg,” scientists said a year ago. In their opinion, after calving, the remaining part of the ice shelf will become unstable and icebergs will continue to break off from it until Larsen C is completely destroyed. According to researchers, in the near future Larsen S will meet the fate of Larsen B.
The separation of the giant iceberg coincided with the predictions of scientists. The fact is that only in the period between May 25-31, the crack lengthened by as much as 17 km - the fastest growth since January.
According to scientists, the crack is now growing in size, and currents and winds can now carry the broken iceberg towards the Atlantic Ocean. So far, scientists cannot say for sure whether the iceberg has split into separate parts or is sliding, maintaining its integrity.
“The detachment looks like a complete break off of an ice shelf,” explained Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado. “What’s unusual is that the shelf area is now at its smallest in the 125 years since it was first mapped. However, this behavior is typical for ice shelves in Antarctica.” According to scientists, the huge flat glacier, 200 m thick, will not slide quickly, but its movement requires monitoring.
“Now we see one iceberg. It will likely break up into smaller pieces over time,” suggests Adrian Luckman, professor of glaciology at Swansea University. In the meantime, scientists are arguing what was the reason for the calving of such a gigantic iceberg - global warming or processes natural to Antarctica.
According to glaciologists, the breakaway iceberg was one of the ten largest in the history of observations. The largest iceberg observed is considered to be iceberg B-15, which broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000 and had an area of 11 thousand square meters. km. In 1956, it was reported that the crew of an American icebreaker encountered an iceberg with an area of 32 thousand square meters. km. However, at that time there were no satellites with which to confirm this.
In addition, Glacier C itself in the past also gave rise to giant icebergs that floated freely. Thus, an object with an area of 9 thousand square meters. km broke away from the glacier in 1986.
One of the largest icebergs in recorded history has broken off from Antarctica. The weight of the ice block is about a trillion tons, and it has already set off for free floating.
What are the climate impacts due to the iceberg breaking off?
Osokin: According to research by domestic and foreign scientists, the balance of snow or ice that forms in Antarctica is approximately equal to how much is lost due to icebergs. Now the balance is approximately zero or slightly positive. We are not threatened by the melting of Antarctica.
Ice giant, what to expect from an iceberg that broke off from Antarctica: Why did the iceberg break off?
Osokin: The fact is that glaciers are constantly flowing. One might say, they spread from the middle of Antarctica to the edges. Reaching the sea, it seems to float on the water, holding on to the mainland. Then the part weakens and a piece breaks off - an iceberg is formed.
This event was expected and warned that it would happen at the beginning of the year. Participants in Project Midas at the British University of Swansea in Wales have been monitoring the formation of the iceberg for more than 10 years.
The iceberg detached between Monday 10 July and Wednesday 12 July. RIA Novosti, citing AFP, clarifies that the breakaway part of the Larsen S glacier has an area of 5.8 thousand square meters. km.
It is still difficult to predict what will happen to the iceberg next, adds Adrian Luckman from Swansea University, who led the research in Antarctica. “Larsen S may well remain intact, but it is more likely to break into pieces. Some of the debris may remain in the same area for decades, while other parts of the iceberg may float northward, where they will melt in warm waters,” the scientist concluded.
Ice giant, what to expect from an iceberg that breaks away from Antarctica: A breakaway iceberg in Antarctica will not bring global problems to humanity
Expert of the popular science publication “Ecology and Life” Alexander Samsonov, in an interview with the “Zvezda” channel, spoke about the consequences of the fact that a huge iceberg broke off in Antarctica on July 10. A piece of ice the size of two megacities will not bring global problems to humanity.
According to scientists, the iceberg that broke off in Antarctica is interesting only because it is very large - its size is 6 thousand square kilometers. In 2001, a piece of ice that also broke off was half the size of the current one. But on the other hand, the breaking off of such a large piece of ice indicates that it is not the glacial effect that reigns on Earth, but the greenhouse effect, and Antarctica is slowly thawing - space photography testifies to this. There are dark spots on them; this is the continental soil of Antarctica.
In itself, an iceberg the size of a small state is not dangerous - it will drift for a long time, shrink, be erased, break into pieces, and this will definitely not cause cataclysms. Another thing is the very fact that Antarctica is losing its ice cover, and the Southern Ocean is warming, washing away the Larsen Ice Shelf, and because of this, giant icebergs the size of Wales or Latvia are breaking off.
Ice giant, what to expect from an iceberg that broke off from Antarctica: NASA took a photo of the broken iceberg
Scientists have been monitoring the stability of this ice shelf for several years. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of the new iceberg on July 12, 2017. MODIS 31's color overlay mode uses a band that measures infrared signals known as "brightness temperature". The measurement is useful for determining the relative warmth or coolness of a landscape.
The blue color shows where the surface is warmest—especially noticeable between a new iceberg and an ice shelf, but also in areas of open ocean or where the water is covered by thin sea ice. Lighter blue colors indicate intact or thicker ice (colder surfaces).
The new iceberg event was confirmed by the Visible Infrared X-ray Image (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite, which was taken on July 12, 2017.
The information was first reported by Project MIDAS, an Antarctic research project based in the United Kingdom.
Scientists have been monitoring the glacier's behavior since last year, when the first faults appeared there, using the European Space Agency's Sentinel satellites, as well as MODIS on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites.
In the coming months and years, researchers will monitor the response of Larsen C and the glaciers as reflected in satellite imagery, aerial photography, automated geophysical instruments on the ice, and field work.
Today the eyes of the whole world were focused on Antarctica. There is a shelf there the size of Lake Issyk-Kul. Where the giant ice block will go now, whether it will sink some ship and how much the water level in the ocean will rise, the editors of “360” looked into it.
Photo: NASA
Leading researcher at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Candidate of Geographical Sciences Andrei Glazovsky helped us understand the possible consequences of the editorial. He said that this iceberg was one of the ten largest ever to break off. The largest of them had an area almost 10 times larger.
The area of Antarctica itself is about 14 million square kilometers, so compared to the size of the continent, this iceberg is not that large. Along the edges of the continent itself are large floating plates called ice shelves. An iceberg broke away from one of these ice shelves.
Andrey Glazovsky.
Ten such icebergs could completely cover Lithuania. With Baikal it would be a little easier - five and a half icebergs would be enough to cover the area of the lake.
They are dangerous because they can raise the level of the world's oceans, but in this case nothing threatens us - the ice shelf from which it moved was already afloat.
Gradually, the iceberg will lag behind the plate - the crack between them will become larger and larger, and then the iceberg will float north - this will be facilitated by the current and wind.
A broken iceberg could become an excellent arena for sports competitions - the world's largest May Day Stadium in the capital of the DPRK, Pyongyang, could accommodate 29 times.
During its journey, it can become a major threat to shipping. Fortunately, modern technologies make it possible to keep such objects under constant control, mainly with the help of satellites.
Give water to those in need
RIA Novosti / Fred Greenberg
Another problem is that glaciers are the largest reserve of fresh water on Earth and due to melting in the middle of the ocean, it simply disappears. In addition, by melting in the ocean, the glacier changes the composition of the water in which the local fauna lives. Such a violation of the proportions of salt and fresh water can simply kill local residents.
The volume of this iceberg is about a thousand cubic kilometers of ice. If you melt it and pour it into liter bottles, you get a thousand trillion bottles. Sell each of them for 1.8 cents and get US GDP.
And a drifting glacier can “change its mind” and moor to land. One of these cases recently occurred near the penguin nesting place - an iceberg suddenly appeared and blocked their access to water.
From time to time, ideas arise to tow such glaciers to countries that lack fresh water. But all this is expensive and difficult from a technical point of view. Such projects usually involve towing glaciers from Antarctica to Africa and the Middle East - in any case, such a route will lie through the equator, where most of the glacier will simply melt
Andrey Glazovsky.
Smaller icebergs are sometimes dragged. This is most often done in Greenland, where oil and gas are extracted on the shelf using drilling platforms: such glaciers are deadly for them.
How much does Antarctica affect sea levels?
RIA Novosti / I. Nosov
The life cycle of Antarctica is similar to debit and credit: the continent's volume is replenished by snow and by calving icebergs and glaciers.
Now the ratio of arrival and departure is negative - Antarctica loses about 125 cubic kilometers of ice every year. The ice it loses ends up in the world's oceans and melts there, becoming part of the common body of water.
Andrey Glazovsky.
Because of this, the water level in the ocean is rising by 1/3 of a millimeter every year, while in general it is rising by 3 millimeters per year. For comparison, Greenland contributes about a millimeter to the ocean.