A 1.1-trillion-ton iceberg has broken off Antarctica, and scientists say it’s one of the largest ever recorded
< < Go Back
- Antarctica has shed an iceberg that’s big enough to fill Lake Erie more than two times.
- It weighs about 1 trillion metric tons.
- It may be the third-largest iceberg recorded since satellites began taking photos of Earth.
- Human activity most likely isn’t responsible for this event, but carbon emissions are driving other changes to Antarctic ice.
The image is a bit fuzzy, but to scientists it’s unmistakable: One of the largest icebergs ever recorded has broken free of Antarctica.
A crack in an Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf is responsible for calving the colossal new iceberg, which has roughly the area of Delaware state and more than twice the volume of Lake Erie.
Researchers noticed the distinctive rift in Antarctica’s ice in 2010, and it had grown rapidly since 2016. The iceberg calved as early as Monday, researchers said.
“Breaking news! The iceberg has fully detached from Larsen C – more details to follow soon,” Martin O’Leary a glaciologist at Swansea University, wrote in a tweet early Wednesday morning for the Antarctic research program Project Midas.
A NASA Earth-observing satellite called Modis was among the first to photograph the colossal ice block freed of Antarctica’s grasp.
Based on the image above, and another created by Adrian Luckman, also a glaciologist at Swansea University and a Project Midas member, it appears the iceberg has largely stayed intact.
More From Business Insider:
Rss Feed