After months of drifting, the world’s largest iceberg stopped near South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic.
The “Titanic II” scenario is less likely, and while penguins in the area appear to be mostly safe, Berg could be a symptom of an unwelcome change to the Antarctic and the planet.
How did you get here?
The A23A was born in 1986, as the iceberg is officially known, when it broke from another iceberg A23, which had been torn from Antarctica earlier that year. Separating small and large ice blocks is called labour.
That early life was peaceful. It sat in the Weddell Sea, east of the Antarctic Peninsula for decades.
The A23A trip began in 2020, freeing it from the seabed and moving. By 2023, we were ready to leave Antarctica oceans completely.
This spring, its progression hit a obstacle when it began to spin around, caught in an electric current known as the Taylor Column near the South Orkney Islands.
After a few months of spinning, they escaped and headed towards South Georgia, an eastern island on the southern tip of South America. South American islands are home to dozens of people and many seals and penguins.
So, then, did it just stop?
yes. It failed to achieve that all the way to South Georgia and is now stuck on the continental shelf about 50 miles from the island.
So far it seems to be sitting in peace and has not begun to invade small pieces, as other giant Bergs have after they split from Antarctica.
How big is this?
It was initially measured to be about 1,500 square miles. It lost some of its girth, but is still considered to be over 1,300 square miles. In contrast, New York City is 300 square miles.
The ice-rich ice sheet of its size, Andrew Magers, an oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey, said in a statement on the group’s website. “There have been two similarly sized Bergs in the same area over the past five years or so, and they have been sporadically present before that,” he said.
“It looks like land, that’s the only way to explain it,” said Alexander Blairey, a physical oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey, last summer.
The iceberg that sank the Titanic was probably a quarter-mile long, and was hilariously small in comparison.
The “A23a” is a little dry. You’ll think they can get a little better.
It’s science for you. “A” refers to the Antarctic area where icebergs were formed. Numbers are assigned consecutively, and a small “a” means broken from the larger berg.
More colorful coins like “Superberg” and “Icemonster” are sadly not scientific.
What’s next?
The A23A will break and start to melt, but it will probably take a while.
“It’s now grounded and there’s even more chances of breaking up due to increased stress, but this is virtually impossible to predict,” Dr. Meijers said. “The big bergs have come a long way north before. One has been within 1,000 kilometres of Perth, Australia, but they all inevitably break and melt quickly.”
Is this all good or bad?
Seals and penguins in South Georgia are unlikely to be affected by icebergs. Still, “potentially, it can interrupt the path to the feeding site and allow adults to consume more energy to travel around it,” Dr. Magers said. “This could reduce the amount of food that will return to island puppies and chicks and increase mortality.”
Icebergs also contain nutrients that melt and release into the ocean. “If bergs are stimulating marine productivity, this could actually boost a population of local predators, such as seals and penguins,” he said.
“The glaciologist in Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University,” said Indrani Das.
“As time passes, the ocean is carved deep inside and begins to fragment further. At one point, it becomes top-heavy and even falls. Given its size, it may take years.”
Boats in the area are well aware of the iceberg location, so there is little fear of “Titanic II.” However, when the A23A collapses, it becomes more difficult to track small bergs and increases the risk.
However, berg itself may pose most direct threats, but it may be a symptom of something bothering you in Antarctica.
Ice shelves have lost billions of tons of ice in the last 25 years. Scientists are due to climate change. Losing all this ice can contribute to rising sea levels.
“The climate is changing and affects how ice shelves melt,” Dr. Das said in 2023 when Berg was still in motion. “As the oceans are warmer, ice shelves have lost mass. Birth is a natural process, but that natural birth can be enhanced by the climate.”
Still, that was up until now. The mammoth iceberg is “a completely normal part of the life cycle of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets,” Dr. Majors said.
