As a result, wandering bergs that enter the Drake Passage are swiftly dragged away from the Antarctic and dumped in warmer waters, where they soon melt away. The ACC, which runs from west to east through the Drake Passage, transports between 3,400 and 5,300 million cubic feet (95 and 150 million cubic meters) of water every second, according to Britannica. were documented on a 20-hour mission in extreme conditions that mapped an underwater area the size of Houston, according to a news release. The main reason for this is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) it's the only current that flows entirely around the globe, and it contains more water than any other current on Earth. Antarcticas melting Doomsday glacier could raise sea levels by 10 feet, scientists say - ABC News Antarcticas melting Doomsday glacier could raise sea levels by 10 feet, scientists say The loss of the Thwaites glacier could destabilize western Antarctica. However, it is unlikely to remain intact much longer because the Drake Passage is renowned for sending icebergs on a one-way trip to their watery graves. The question among scientists was not if the growing rift would finish traversing the shelf and break, but when Now, nearly four years later, it has done just that. Also known as the 'doomsday' glacier, Thwaites extends into an ice shelf. In February 2019, a rift spanning most of the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica appeared ready to spawn an iceberg about twice the size of New York City. National Ice Center in June revealed that A-76A is almost exactly the same size as it was when it fractured from its parent berg more than a year ago, according to Earth Observatory. Now researchers have mapped the ground underneath the glacier for the first time, to see how it will evolve in the future. City-size lake found miles below Antarcticas biggest ice sheet. Credit: ESA European Space Agency The new iceberg is anticipated to be named A-81 with the smaller piece to the north likely identified as either A-81A or A-82. Read more: Scientists discover 1 million-year-old DNA sample lurking beneath Antarctic seafloor. The berg has managed to avoid substantial ice loss during its journey so far. Now researchers have mapped the ground underneath the glacier for the first time, to see how it will evolve in the future. The iceberg, measuring 1550 sq km, detached from the 150 m-thick ice shelf a decade after scientists first spotted massive cracks in the shelf. But some ice shelves along the Antarctic peninsula have undergone rapid disintegration in recent years, a phenomenon scientists believe may be related to climate change.To date, A-76A has traveled around 1,250 miles (2,000 km) since breaking off from the Antarctic Peninsula in 2021. 1 day ago &0183 &32 After a five-day multinational search across an area the size of Massachusetts. Periodic calving off of large chunks of those shelves is part of a natural cycle. The last major chunk to have come off in this area was in the early 1970s. The Ronne ice shelf on the flank of the Antarctic peninsula is one of the largest of several enormous floating sheets of ice that connect to the continent’s landmass and extend out into the surrounding seas. At 490 square miles, the iceberg is bigger than the size of New York City, which is 302 square miles. The enormity of A-76, which broke away from Antarctica’s Ronne ice shelf, ranks as the largest existing iceberg on the planet – surpassing A-23A, which is about 3,380 sq km and is also floating in the Weddell Sea.Īnother big Antarctic iceberg that had threatened a penguin-populated island off the southern tip of South America has since lost much of its mass and broken into pieces, scientists said earlier this year.Ī-76 was first detected by the British Antarctic Survey and confirmed by the US National Ice Center based in Maryland using imagery from Copernicus Sentinel-1, consisting of two polar-orbiting satellites. Despite the long journey, the iceberg’s size remains remarkably unchanged. Photograph: European Space Agencyīy comparison New York City’s total area of land and water is 1,213 sq km while the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean occupies 3,640 sq km. A huge ice block has broken off from western Antarctica into the Weddell Sea. In the typically ice-free Southern Ocean, surveys of iceberg diameters show that most bergs have a typical diameter of 300500 metres (1,0001,600 feet). An image from the European Space Agency showing the A-76 and how it compares in size to Majorca. The iceberg, dubbed A-76, measures around 4320 sq km in size currently making it the largest berg in the world. Back in late May, an iceberg roughly 105 miles long and 15 miles wide was spotted by scientists as it broke from the western side of Antarctica’s Ronne Ice Shelf, according to the European.
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