Three long rifts had been actively developing on the Brunt Ice Shelf over the last five years, Prof Luckman said, with researchers expecting “something spectacular was going to happen.” The research base, which is run by the British Antarctic Survey, was reportedly just 20km from the rupture line of the calving. Nobody is currently in the research station, which has been operating in a reduced role since 2017 because of the growing possibility of just such an incident. "Although the breaking off of large parts of Antarctic ice shelves is an entirely normal part of how they work, large calving events such as the one detected at the Brunt Ice Shelf on Friday remain quite rare and exciting," Prof Adrian Luckman of Swansea University told the BBC. It will now be monitored remotely because of the risk it could pose in future to shipping. The 470-square mile iceberg’s break from the Brunt Ice Shelf was confirmed by surface instruments on Friday. Since the ice is already floating, the newly created iceberg won't contribute to rising sea levels.An iceberg nearly the size of London has broken off Antarctica close to the UK’s Halley Research Station. Ice shelves are permanent floating sheets of ice connected to a landmass, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Or it could move with ocean currents and winds in a northward direction, where it will be eroded more quickly.Ī similar event happened 15 years ago with the dramatic break-up of part of the nearby Larsen B ice shelf. The iceberg - or icebergs if it breaks up ever further - may remain in the region, where the ocean is quite cold, sticking around for years or even decades. Scientists obtain radar images from orbiting European satellites using microwave energy. But the images themselves reveal nothing, and it is only by special processing of the data that scientists can track the iceberg, Luckman said.Īs for how long the iceberg will stick around, it depends on how quickly it moves to a warmer climate, and how quickly it breaks into smaller pieces. "It's the Antarctic winter now, and lack of sunlight means that no optical satellite data is being collected," Luckman said in June. The development of the rift over the past year was monitored using data from the European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellites, a radar-imaging system capable of acquiring images regardless of cloud cover, and throughout the current winter period of polar darkness. Unfortunately, there are no public websites allowing a live view of the iceberg or ice shelf. "We will continue to monitor both the impact of this calving event on the Larsen C ice shelf, and the fate of this huge iceberg." “We have been anticipating this event for months, and have been surprised how long it took for the rift to break through the final few kilometers (miles) of ice," Luckman said. Previously, he said the iceberg breaking off "will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula." The calving reduced the size of the ice shelf by some 12%. Some of the ice may remain in the area for decades, while parts of the iceberg may drift north into warmer waters." "The iceberg is one of the largest recorded and its future progress is difficult to predict," said Adrian Luckman, a professor of Swansea University and the lead investigator of Project MIDAS. "It may remain in one piece but is more likely to break into fragments.
#Antarctica iceberg breaking off 2017 crack
Now, the 120-mile crack first spotted in 2011 finally made its way back to the sea, "calving" off the massive berg. Over the past several months, an ever-lengthening and widening crack in the ice shelf captivated the world.
At 2,200 square miles, the chunk of floating ice is nearly the size of Delaware. The 1 trillion ton iceberg, with twice of the volume of Lake Erie, broke off from the Larsen C ice shelf between Monday and Wednesday, according to Project MIDAS, which has been monitoring the shelf. One of the largest icebergs ever recorded broke off from an ice shelf in Antarctica, British scientists announced Wednesday.
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