Massive iceberg just broke loose from Antarctica

Chunk of the Larsen C ice shelf exceeds 2,200 square miles and weighs more than a trillion tons

Scientists announced Wednesday that a much anticipated break at the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica has occurred, unleashing a massive iceberg that is more than 2,200 square miles in area and weighs a trillion tons.

In other words, the iceberg — among the largest in recorded history to splinter off the Antarctic continent — is close to the size of Delaware and consists of almost four times as much ice as the fast melting ice sheet of Greenland loses in a year. It is expected to be given the name “A68” soon, scientists said.

“Its volume is twice that of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes,” wrote researchers with Project MIDAS, a research group at Swansea and Aberystwyth Universities in Wales that has been monitoring the situation closely by satellite.

The break was detected by one NASA satellite instrument, MODIS on the Aqua satellite, and confirmed by a second, they said. The European Space Agency has also confirmed the break.

The iceberg contains so much mass that if all of it were added anew to the ocean, it would drive almost 3 millimeters of global sea level rise. In this case though, the ice was already afloat so there won’t be a substantial sea level change.

The Project MIDAS group said Wednesday that the effect of the break is to shrink the size of the floating Larsen C ice shelf by 12 percent. While they can’t be certain, they’re concerned that this could have a destabilizing effect on the remainder of the shelf, which is among Antarctica’s largest.

“The iceberg is one of the largest recorded and its future progress is difficult to predict,” said Adrian Luckman, the lead MIDAS researcher and an Antarctic scientist at Swansea University, in a statement. “It may remain in one piece but is more likely to break into fragments. Some of the ice may remain in the area for decades, while parts of the iceberg may drift north into warmer waters.”

There is no expected immediate effect on shipping, Luckman said by email.

JOHN SONNTAG/NASA VIA AP This Nov. 10, 2016 aerial photo released by NASA shows a rift in the Antarctic Peninsula’s Larsen C ice shelf. A vast iceberg with twice the volume of Lake Erie has broken off from this key floating ice shelf in Antarctica, scientists at the University...