A huge iceberg more than 15 times the size of Paris broke away from Antarctica on Sunday, British scientists said on Monday.
However, this phenomenon is not due to climate change, even if the region is threatened by warming, according to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
The block of ice, which measures 1,550 square kilometers, broke away from the pack ice on Sunday during a high amplitude tide which enlarged an existing crack on the ice, called Chasm-1, detailed in a press release this organization. polar zone research.
A natural detachment
Two years ago, an iceberg of an almost identical size had already formed in the same area, called the Brunt Barrier, and on which the British research station Halley VI is located.
The glaciologists, present on site from November to March, have been observing the progression of vast cracks in the ice for ten years.
❄ Antarctica: a huge iceberg breaks off from the pack ice
👉 The area of this block of ice is 1550 km², or 15 times the size of Paris pic.twitter.com/vicY9GXnVm
– BFMTV (@BFMTV) January 24, 2023
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In 2016, the BAS had decided to move this station about twenty kilometers, fearing that it would find itself on a drifting iceberg following the melting of the ice.
“This detachment was expected and is a natural behavior of Brunt's barrier.
It is not linked to climate change, ”said glaciologist Dominic Hodgson, quoted in the press release.
An ever-shrinking expanse of ice
However, the continent is suffering the pangs of global warming, with record temperatures recorded last year, as elsewhere on the planet.
The extent of the ice there reached in February 2022 the minimum ever recorded in 44 years of satellite observations, recently indicated the annual report of the European program on climate change Copernicus.
In 2021, the complete melting of an iceberg, 4,000 km north of where it broke off from the pack ice in 2017, released more than 150 billion tonnes of fresh water mixed with nutrients, worrying scientists the impact of the phenomenon on a fragile ecosystem.
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