Antarctica, a giant iceberg has broken off from Pine Island Glacier
Environment — di Lorenzo Brenna
The calving of the block of ice, almost as large as Malta, further exposes an area that is home to highly vulnerable ice.
Antarctica, a giant iceberg has broken off from Pine Island Glacier
The calving of the block of ice, almost as large as Malta, further exposes an area that is home to highly vulnerable ice.
The extraordinary upheaval affecting Antarctica is perfectly summed up in a single number: 20.7. These are the degrees recorded just a few days ago on Seymour Island — never in the history of Antarctica had such a high temperature been recorded. The increasingly warm climate is accelerating the melting of the ice, which increased sixfold between 1979 and 2017. Just a few days ago, an enormous iceberg, covering more than three hundred square kilometres, broke off from Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica.
An iceberg the size of Malta adrift
This was revealed by images captured from space by the Copernicus satellites, the Earth observation programme of the European Space Agency (Esa). The event had been anticipated: the Pine Island Glacier is one of the most studied and monitored on the planet, and a series of fractures had been recorded in early 2019.
Read also: Antarctica: 20.7 degrees centigrade and an arid landscape. How the climate is upending the Earth
The block of ice that broke away from the ice shelf then rapidly shattered into a constellation of smaller icebergs, the largest of which — large enough to earn a name of its own: B-49 — is now heading towards the Southern Ocean.
We just approached within a couple of miles of the new giant #PineIslandGlacier iceberg B-49 (the white wall behind smaller icebergs and brash ice in the foreground) on @GlacierThwaites @GlacierOffshore cruise #NBP2002 aboard RV Nathaniel B Palmer.
The impact of a changing climate on the ice
This phenomenon, known as "calving," is a natural process. It is, however, occurring with increasing frequency: in the past, such fractures took place every four to six years, whereas now they happen almost annually, likely as a result of the ongoing climate crisis. Glaciologists fear that B-49 may be the result of glacier melt, "probably caused by the intrusion of warmer waters into the area, which may be linked to climate change," explained Adrian Luckman, a glaciologist at Swansea University.
@sentinel_hub @ESA_EO @Pierre_Markuse @BBCAmos @AntarcticPIG @AntarcticReport @helenafricker @BAS_News @EU_ENV @EUClimateAction 📢🔴The Pine Island glacier in #Antarctica 🇦🇶 has finally calved, creating many large icebergs!
Check out these #Sentinel1 🛰️🇪🇺 captures from yesterday 09 Feb., last week 05 Feb. and 01 Oct., 4 months ago, when large cracks became apparent.
Check out these #Sentinel1 🛰️🇪🇺 captures from yesterday 09 Feb., last week 05 Feb. and 01 Oct., 4 months ago, when large cracks became apparent.
Antarctica is transforming
The appearance of the Antarctic coastline, which once seemed cloaked in eternal ice, is therefore in constant flux. The glaciers of West Antarctica are particularly under threat: in addition to Pine Island Glacier, the nearby Thwaites Glacier, which covers an area of 120,000 square kilometres, is melting at a vertiginous rate. The two glaciers are the "guardians" of a vast reserve of frozen water, which could raise global sea levels by one and a half metres if it were to flow into the ocean.
Read also: In Greenland, 11 billion tonnes of ice melted in a single day
"The Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites have opened a kind of porthole through which people can observe events like this occurring in remote regions of the world," said Mark Drinkwater, an Esa scientist. "What is truly worrying, however, is that the daily flow of data reveals the dramatic speed at which the climate is transforming the face of Antarctica."