Iceberg 4 times size of London breaks off

Climate change to blame

ONE of the biggest icebergs ever recorded broke away from Antarctica yesterday.

Covering 2,300 square miles, four times the size of Greater London, it stands 700ft tall.

The World Wildlife Fund’s Rod Downie, said: “It demonstrates just how fragile the polar regions are.”

A US satellite observed the berg in an area known as the Larsen C Ice Shelf, south of the tip of Latin America.

Scientists had been keeping an eye on a large crack there more than a decade. The berg will not be a threat to shipping for now, because it won’t move very far, very fast.

But currents and winds might eventually push it north, where it could be a hazard.

The iceberg is thought to be in the top 10 biggest ever recorded, but it is no match for some of the true monsters.

The largest was B-15, which came away from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000 and measured some 4,200 square miles. Six years later, fragments of this super-berg still existed and passed by New Zealand.

Scientists think Larsen C is now at its smallest extent since the end of the last ice age some 11,700 years ago.

Mr Downie added: “Whilst this is just Antarctica doing what Antarcfor tica does, we’ll need to redraw the map of the Peninsula. “The polar regions drive our oceans and atmosphere.

“But west Antarctica has experienced some of the most rapid rates of warming on the planet recently and that’s not good news for species such as emperor penguins. “This demonstrates why we need to urgently globally tackle climate change head on.”

HEADLINES Same image published by the Mirror in 1912 NEAR DEATH Capt Scott, centre, with his party at South Pole SHIP Terra Nova trapped in ice

GIANT CRACK The iceberg yesterday