A giant iceberg the size of Delaware is poised to break off in Antarctica. Where the massive chunk of ice will float after and how long it will take to melt depend on a variety of factors.
A giant iceberg nearly the size of Delaware has broken off an Antarctic ice shelf.
Scientists have closely watched the growing crack in the ice shelf over the past few months.
Swansea University professor Adrian Luckman, a scientist with Project MIDAS, answered many of the burning questions about the newly created iceberg.
It is being tracked by many types of satellite data. As for actual photos taken by scientists aboard a survey plane, that won’t occur until October, when the Antarctic spring is underway.
No, but it could indirectly cause a tiny sea-level rise years, decades, or even centuries from now — or never.
The ice shelf is already floating, so when a part of it detaches — such as the iceberg — no extra water is displaced. Project MIDAS research shows the remaining ice shelf may be less stable and could follow the example of its northerly neighbor Larsen B, which experienced an acceleration of glaciers upon its ice shelf break-up. Other scientists expect the ice shelf to regrow. Only time will tell.
Even if it is less stable, the point at which collapse of the remaining ice shelf would occur would be many years away. Only following this potential far-away collapse would sea-level rise occur, and even then the extra rates of sea-level rise would be small, measured in millimeters per year at most.
No. There are no penguin colonies on the ice shelf.
It depends on how quickly the iceberg moves to a warmer climate, and how quickly it breaks into smaller pieces. The iceberg — or icebergs if it breaks up ever further — may remain in the region, where the ocean is quite cold, and stick around for years, even decades. Or it could move with ocean currents and winds in a northward direction, where it will be eroded more quickly. So far, there is only the one large berg and no smaller ones.
No. The breaking off, or “calving” as it is called, was slow and graceful. The ice is already floating so when the fracture broke all the way through, it simply started to drift away.
No. Accessing that area is logistically difficult and involves preparing well in advance. And even if a camera were set up, it could only see a small part of the iceberg, while satellites see the whole thing on a regular basis.
It depends on how the remaining ice reacts to the change, but we are unlikely to see anything as big as this from this ice shelf for a long, long time.
Yes. Calving is a natural part of the cycle of ice shelves. Ice flows gradually into the shelf, the shelf expands until stresses become too much, and then icebergs are formed. Whether or not Larsen C will reform is unclear. Scientists think there is a possibility the remaining shelf is too fragile to grow back to its former size.
