Antarctic iceberg the size of Delaware slowly on move
Scientists get first look at 1-trillion-ton chunk
Researchers finally getting an upclose view of the mammoth iceberg that sheared off an Antarctica ice shelf earlier this year aren’t having to look far — the 1-trillion-ton chunk of ice hasn’t moved much.
The massive iceberg the size of Delaware has only moved about 15 miles at its southern edge, while its northern edge remains much closer to the Larsen C ice shelf it departed in July.
As Antarctica nears summer, shedding its months of darkness, scientists have finally been able to see the iceberg, named A-68, in person.
Stubbornly thick sea ice has blocked it from potentially traveling farther out to sea.
Sea ice, or frozen ocean water, stays in the region year-round. “But sometimes during the summer, large areas open up, and it continually drifts clockwise, so may take A-68 with it,” said Adrian Luckman of Swansea University in the U.K. and the lead investigator of Project MIDAS, a British research group that’s been tracking the iceberg.
Scientists said in July that the iceberg — or icebergs if it broke up even further — could remain in the region, where the ocean is quite cold, sticking around for years or even decades. Or it could move with ocean currents and winds in a northward direction, where it would erode more quickly.
NASA scientists with the agency’s Operation IceBridge have been flying over the region the past few weeks.
In a blog post this week, NASA science writer Kathryn Hansen shared her experience seeing the massive chunk of ice for the first time.
“I was aware that I would be seeing an iceberg the size of Delaware, but I wasn’t prepared for how that would look from the air. Most icebergs I have seen appear relatively small and blocky, and the entire part of the berg that rises above the ocean surface is visible at once. Not this berg,” she said.
“A-68 is so expansive it appears if it were still part of the ice shelf. But if you look far into the distance you can see a thin line of water between the iceberg and where the new front of the shelf begins. A small part of the flight today took us down the front of iceberg A-68, its towering edge reflecting in the dark Weddell Sea.”
NASA’s Operation IceBridge is the largest airborne survey of Earth’s polar ice ever flown, according to the agency. It yields an “unprecedented” 3D view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice.
The mission includes flights over Greenland each March-May and over Antarctica each October-November.