Friday, March 18, 2005
Mean Piece of Ice
New pictures from the Envisat satellite show that B-15A,currently the world's largest free-floating iceberg, is moving again. The cucumber-shaped iceberg is the size of a small European country - 75 miles long and 13 miles wide.
The giant floe cracked off the B-15, the largest iceberg ever observed, near the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 2000. While its parent, which was the size of Jamaica, quickly disintegrated, B-15A remained remarkably sturdy, bullying the freezing Antarctic seas. For over two years it diverted sea currents, disrupted breeding patterns for a penguin colony and required extra icebreaker activity to maintain shipping routes.
During a vicious storm in 2003, B-15A got stuck on an Antarctic shelf 2,400 miles south of New Zealand. A piece of the berg broke off during the storm, but the bulk remained intact.
Scientists at the European Space Agency, which operates Envisat, say that in early March tides and local currents lifted the rogue berg and set it free again. Already, it nearly caused a titanic ice collision, dodging the 40-mile-long Drygalski ice tongue in McMurdo Sound on the Ross Sea by just a few kilometers.
The giant floe cracked off the B-15, the largest iceberg ever observed, near the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 2000. While its parent, which was the size of Jamaica, quickly disintegrated, B-15A remained remarkably sturdy, bullying the freezing Antarctic seas. For over two years it diverted sea currents, disrupted breeding patterns for a penguin colony and required extra icebreaker activity to maintain shipping routes.
During a vicious storm in 2003, B-15A got stuck on an Antarctic shelf 2,400 miles south of New Zealand. A piece of the berg broke off during the storm, but the bulk remained intact.
Scientists at the European Space Agency, which operates Envisat, say that in early March tides and local currents lifted the rogue berg and set it free again. Already, it nearly caused a titanic ice collision, dodging the 40-mile-long Drygalski ice tongue in McMurdo Sound on the Ross Sea by just a few kilometers.
