![]() Average sea levels have risen about nine inches since 1880, and about a quarter of that increase comes from ice melting in the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets, according to a study published in the journal Nature earlier this month. The Antarctic ice sheet is warming faster than the rest of the planet, causing melting of snow and ice covers, especially around the Weddell Sea.Īnother big Antarctic iceberg that had threatened a penguin-populated island in South America has since lost much of its mass and broken into pieces. While regular shearing off of large chunks of the ice shelves is part of a natural cycle, some shelves have experienced rapid break up in the last few years due to global warming. The Ronne Ice Shelf is one of the biggest of several gigantic floating sheets of ice that connect to the continent's landmass and extend out into the surrounding seas. A-76 split from the Ronne Ice Shelf and was first spotted by the British Antarctic Survey. The iceberg, named A-76, has a surface area of around 4,320 square kilometres, making it the biggest berg currently afloat in the world. It split off the western side of the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica's Weddell Sea, the European Space Agency (ESA) informed. ![]() ![]() National Snow & Ice Data Center.The world's largest iceberg - thrice the size of Delhi - has broken off from Antarctica last week. ![]() Some ice shelves along the Antarctic peninsula, farther from the South Pole, have undergone rapid disintegration in recent years, a phenomenon scientists believe may be related to global warming, according to the U.S. Because the ice was already floating in the sea before dislodging from the coast, its breakaway does not raise ocean levels, he told Reuters by email. Scambos said the Ronne and another vast ice shelf, the Ross, have "behaved in a stable, quasi-periodic fashion" over the past century or more. Periodic calving of large chunks of those shelves is part of a natural cycle, and the breaking off of A-76, which is likely to split into two or three pieces soon, is not linked to climate change, said Ted Scambos, a research glaciologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The Ronne Ice Shelf near the base 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 surrounding seas. National Ice Center using imagery from Copernicus Sentinel-1, consisting of two polar-orbiting satellites. (CBC News)Ī-76 was first detected by the British Antarctic Survey and confirmed by the Maryland-based U.S. The iceberg is about three-quarters the size of Prince Edward Island. The enormity of A-76, which broke away from Antarctica's Ronne Ice Shelf, ranks as the largest existing iceberg on the planet, surpassing the now second-place A-23A, about 3,380 square kilometres (1,305 square miles) in size and also floating in the Weddell Sea.Īnother massive 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. state of Rhode Island is smaller still, with a land mass of just 2,678 square kilometres (1,034 square miles). That makes it three-quarters the size of P.E.I., which has an area of 5,660 square kilometres, and larger than Spain's tourist island of Majorca in the Mediterranean, which occupies 3,640 square kilometres (1,405 square miles). Its surface area spans 4,320 square kilometres (1,668 square miles) and measures 175 kilometres (106 miles) long by 25 kilometres (15 miles) wide. The newly calved berg, designated A-76 by scientists, was spotted in recent satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, the space agency said in a statement posted on its website with a photo of the enormous, oblong ice sheet. (Copernicus Sentinel data (2021)/ESA, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)Ī giant slab of ice has sheared off from the frozen edge of Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest iceberg afloat in the world, the European Space Agency said on Wednesday. This animation uses images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission and shows the giant slab of ice breaking off from the Ronne Ice Shelf, lying in the Weddell Sea, on. The world’s largest iceberg, dubbed A-76, has calved from Antarctica.
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