The largest iceberg in the world – three times larger than New York City – could derive to an isolated island where a scientist warns that he may disrupt the diet of penguin and seals babies.
The gigantic wall of ice moves slowly of Antarctica On a potential collision trajectory with southern Georgia, a A crucial breeding ground for fauna in the South Atlantic.
The satellite images suggest that unlike the previous “megabergs”, this thug did not collapse in smaller pieces when it crossed the southern ocean, AFP Andrew Meijers, physical oceanographer at British Antarctic Survey on Friday.
He said it was difficult to predict his exact trajectory, but that the dominant currents suggested that the colossus would reach the shallow continental plateau around southern Georgia in two to four weeks.
But what could then happen remains to guess, he said.
It could avoid the plateau and be swept away in free waters beyond the southern Georgia, a British overseas territory located some 870 miles east of the Falkland Islands.
Or, he could hit the bottom slope and get stuck for months or break into pieces.
Omar Zaghloul/Anadolu via Getty Images
Meijers said this scenario could seriously prevent seals and penguins from trying to feed and raise their young on the island. THE Island hosts 1.3 million couples of jugular penguins – one of the largest colonies in the world – around 5 million seals and 65 million breeding birds.
“Icebergs failed in the past, which has caused significant mortality in penguin chicks and seals babies,” he said.
An area of approximately 1,550 square miles, the largest and oldest iceberg in the world, known as A23ABased on the Antarctic Plateau in 1986. Before it put in 1986, the Colossal Iceberg housed a Soviet research station. FALLEY
He remained stuck for more than 30 years before finally freeing himself in 2020, his trip to the North sometimes being delayed by the ocean forces which kept him in rotation on the spot. In 2023, the British Antarctic Survey published a Time-Lapse satellite imagesshowing the movement of the iceberg.
Iceberg “at the Game of Thrones”
Meijers, who met the iceberg face to face when he directed a scientific mission at the end of 2023, described “an immense white cliff, 40 or 50 meters high, which extends from one horizon to the other “.
“It’s exactly like this white wall. It’s really a bit of Game of Thrones, in fact,” he said, referring to the Dark Fantasy series.
A23A followed almost the same path as the previous massive icebergs, passing on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula through the Weddell Sea along a road called “Alley of Icebergs”. It is the same water current as the famous explorer Ernest Shackleton used in 1916 to escape from Antarctica after losing his ship, endurance. The legendary A wreck has been discovered off the coast of Antarctica in 2022.
Weighing a little less than a tons billion, this monstrous fresh water block was driven by the most powerful oceanic “current” in the world: the Antarctic circumpolar current.
Raul Cordero, of the Chilean University of Santiago, which is also part of the National Research Committee on Antarctica, said it was convinced that the iceberg would bypass southern Georgia.
Andrew Meijers / AP
“The island acts as an obstacle to ocean currents and therefore generally diverts water long before it reaches the island,” he explained.
“The iceberg is moved by this stream of water, so the chances it strikes are not so high,” although pieces could do so, he said.
Another scientist, the glaciologist Soledad Tiranti, currently on an Argentinian exploration trip to Antarctica, said that icebergs such as A23A “are so deep that before reaching an island or a continent, they generally remain Stuck “in the seabed.
It is summer in southern Georgia and resident penguins and seals along the southern coast feed in freezing waters to bring food to fatten their young.
“If the iceberg is park there, either it will physically block the place where they feed, or they will have to get around it,” said Meijers.
“This burns an enormous amount of additional energy, which represents less energy for puppies and chicks, which leads to increased mortality.”
South Georgia seal and penguin populations have already experienced a “bad season” with an avian flu epidemic “and that (the iceberg) would only worsen the situation,” he said.
As the A23A melts, it could sow water with nutrients that promote the growth of phytoplankton, nourishing whales and other species, and allowing scientists to study how these proliferations absorb carbon dioxide from the ‘atmosphere.
Although the icebergs are a natural phenomenon, Meijers said that the speed at which they disappeared from Antarctica increased, probably due to climate change induced by humans.
In January 2023, a massive piece of the antarctic mirror platform – a piece of the size of two cities in New York – Listed. The burnt ice platform extends on the other side of the Weddell Sea from the site of the Larsen C ice platform on the Antarctic Peninsula. In 2022, the Banquise Larsen C – which was roughly the size of the city of New York and has long been considered stable – collapsed in the sea.
