What is happening to the A68 iceberg that broke away from Antarctica a year ago?
One of the largest documented icebergs to break off into Antarctica last year remains mostly intact. As the latest satellite images show, it hasn’t strayed too far from its former home either.
Goice shelf A68, four times the size of London, between July 10 and 12 last year separated from the Larsen glacier C. It is difficult to determine when exactly the giant block of ice broke off, because at this time of year the thick cloud cover effectively limits visibility from satellite.
Nevertheless, thanks to the Deymos satellite on July 14, new images of the A68 were able to be taken. As can be seen in the latest satellite photographs, the dense lod in the Weddell Sea maintained the goice hull near Antarctica.
In May of this year, it broke off ponortheastern piece of gory. According to researchers from the Midas project run by the UK’s Swansea University, whooers are engaged in research gor ice and have long observed the Larsen Shelf Glacier, the broken off part was the size of a small town.
Scientists from the European Space Agency (ESA), to which theorej belongs to the Sentinel-1 satellite monitoring the goiceberg, reported that they had expected such a turn of events. As recently as last year, just after calving, as this is what experts call the breaking off of fragments of theoIn the glacier and the formation of gor of ice, the researchers issued a statement saying „The fate of the ice gory is difficult to predict, it could remain in the area for decades, but if it breaks up, parts could drift to poNorth to warmer wod”.
Ocean currents, tides and wind did not push the ice giant too far away. It was also hindered by lod at sea. Currently gora A68 is located in the Weddell Sea about 65 kilometersoin from the place of origin and beyond the piece, ktory fell off in May this year, gora remains virtually untouched.
Researchers from the Midas project shared an animation on the blog showing PoAntarctic island with the A68 as of March 12, 2017. by July 5, 2018. It can be seen a giant crack on poLarsen C bench, the detachment of gory and its krotka subroż.
Gora A68 is a shost largest known goice ra since the measurement beganow. It has nearly six thousand. kilometeroin square area and weighs about a trillion tons (1,000,000,000,000,000). GoThe rock broke away from the Larsen Shelf Glacier, whichohe whole of which is about a quarter of the size of Poland. The glacier was divided into three fragments. Larsen A, is the smallest part of it. It collapsed in 1995. Larsen B disintegrated in 2002. Larsen C is the largest fragment and appeared stable until a few years ago.
In 2011, researchers observed a massive crack on its surface. The burst has been steadily growing, but has accelerated significantly in recent years. The detachment of goThe ice core deprived the Larsen C glacier of about 12 percent of the. surface. According to scientistsow there is a risk that Larsen C will share the fate of its neighbor – Larsen B glacier, ktory finally disintegrated in 2002, but in 1995 it broke away from the rownie powerful goice ra.