Is the A68a iceberg, which was once three and a half times bigger than London going to melt completely?

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The iceberg has been breaking off since 2017

Iceberg A68 located in the Atlantic has been going on a highway through hell since 2017, ever since it role off due to calving.

Between Tuesday and Thursday last week, a smaller iceberg, named A68g calved from the remaining portion of A68a, which is currently drifting on the South Atlantic Ocean. A68g measures at 33 miles in length and 11.5 miles in breadth.

The latest split was first spotted by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and was later confirmed by the US National Ice Center (USNIC) on Thursday, by using imagery from European radar imaging satellite Sentinel 1A.

The berg’s calving history

A68a
AFP

A68 was formed in July 2017 after a huge crack caused Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf, which was the third biggest iceberg ever – to break off from the freezing continent. At that time, A68 measured at 5,800 square kilometres (2,240 square miles) and was almost Delaware’s size.

After that incident, the berg had been repeatedly breaking into smaller pieces, and was carried north by currents going towards South Georgia, an isnald located in the southern Atlantic Ocean. The large parts of the iceberg are being tracked by scientists at all times as they have chances of colliding with the largely uninhabited island and affecting it’s wildlife, but if it heads off to the open ocean, it will break further due to the rough waters.

Raising concerns

This is a huge problem for experts as Antarctica has enough freshwater to raise sea levels by approximately 2.5 meters.

A second large crack has been developing in A68a around the part where A68g broke off, and that portion is expected to calve in the upcoming days. It also looks big enough to be given a name, as stated by the US National Ice Center.

A68a
NASA/NATHAN KURTZ

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