Iceberg bigger than New York City will break off of Antarctica, Nasa says
- Scientists prepare for the inevitability of a iceberg breakaway that could have greater consequences for the stability of the entire Brunt Ice Shelf
A chasm and a crack on the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica are creeping closer and closer to one another, and when the two finally meet, a slab of ice twice the size of New York City will break away and float out to sea.
The two glacial flaws are about 4km (2.5 miles) apart, and it could take days or months for them to finally rendezvous. But when they do, the iceberg that forms in the Weddell Sea won’t be the largest to orbit Antarctica. In fact, it might not even make the historical top 20.
Its size is not what makes it noteworthy – it’s what the break itself says about the natural process of iceberg calving, the way climate change might be destabilising other ice shelves like Brunt, and how the movement could jeopardise the critical scientific research human residents have conducted there for more than 60 years.
Since 1956, British scientists have been studying geology, glaciology and the atmosphere at the Halley research station located on the Brunt Ice Shelf.
The lab has been torn down and rebuilt many times over the decades, and took its most recent form in 2012 when the Halley VI Research Station – a mobile, modular structure – delivered its first scientific data.
That same year, satellite monitoring showed that a large chasm in the ice shelf – officially named Chasm 1 – was growing for the first time in more than three decades.