Gliders Probe Huge Iceberg s Impact on Penguin Island s Ecosystem
Two gliders were deployed near the A-68a iceberg near South Georgia. (Photo: Povl Abrahamsen / BAS)
For the next four months, robotic submersible vehicles will swim the frigid, choppy waters around South Georgia island, gathering evidence to determine whether a massive Antarctic iceberg might have harmed wildlife there, scientists said Wednesday.
The iceberg, known as A68a, approached the South Atlantic island as a single block of more than 4,000 square kilometers in December, then began breaking into enormous chunks that have since swirled around the island on counter-clockwise currents.
Even broken up, A68a and its baby bergs could still disrupt the local environment, said Geraint Tarling, an ecologist with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The largest chunk now covers almost 900 square kilometers, about the same size as the Scottish island of Mull.
In 2017, a giant piece of ice the size of a small country broke away from the Antarctic. Measuring 5,800 square kilometres, twice the size of Luxembourg, it was one of the largest icebergs ever recorded.
This vast mass of frozen water has been slowly drifting through the ocean since it made a break from the Larson C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula three years ago. Tracked by satellites the berg, shaped like a hand with an outstretched index finger, began moving north in 2018.
That was until last year when the iceberg, labelled as A68, was quickly propelled into the Southern Atlantic by strong currents in the ocean.
The world s most suspenseful iceberg is breaking apart
Iceberg A-68A breaking apart on Dec. 21.
Image: Copernicus Sentinel / Pierre Markuse
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Last week, iceberg A-68a was larger than Rhode Island. By Dec. 23, satellite footage showed the berg had broken apart into several (though still massive) chunks of ice.Â
Earth scientists have followed this enormous iceberg since July 2017, when it snapped off an ice shelf (the end of a glacier that floats over the ocean) in Antarctica. But over the last month, the berg stirred fresh intrigue. While drifting through the Southern Atlantic Ocean, A-68a was on course to potentially run aground off of similarly-sized South Georgia Island, a biologically rich, remote British territory about 800 miles east of the Falkland Islands. That could threaten wildlife and the marine environment around the penguin-populated island.
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A research mission is about to be launched to the world s biggest iceberg, which is heading dangerously close to one of the most delicate ecosystems on the planet.
Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey will next month travel to the frozen mass, the A68a, which is floating in the Southern Atlantic Ocean.
The iceberg is 3,900 square kilometres, larger than Luxembourg and more than twice the size of Sydney.
GUEST: Dr Povl Abrahamsen, Physical Oceanographer for the British Antarctic Survey and mission leader
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