Context
-
Recently, world’s largest the size of the Spanish island of Majorca has broken off the coast of Antarctica. The A-76 Iceberg has calved from the western side of the Ronne Ice Shelf and is afloat in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea.
About A-76 Iceberg
- Dubbed as the largest iceberg in the world, A-76 measures around 4,320 sq km in size, three times the size of New Delhi, which is 1,484 sq km.
- The iceberg was spotted by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission of the agency and has successfully taken over the ranks from the A-23A iceberg approximately 3880 sq km in size, also afloat in Weddell sea.
- The A-76 is 170 km in length and 25 km wide.
- The Ronne ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula is one of the largest of the several enormous floating sheets of ice that connect to the continent’s landmass and extend out into the seas surrounding it.
- A-76 Iceberg is not the first to break off from the ice-self. Earlier in February of this year, a giant iceberg, approximately 1.5 times the size of Greater Paris, broke off from the northern section of the continent’s Brunt Ice Shelf.
- Similarly, in July 2017, one of the largest icebergs on record calved from the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica. While the section remained intact with the shelf despite being calved off, it was only in September 2018 that strong winds pushed the southern end of the berg out into the Weddell Gyre.
Calving ice-shelf a cause of concern
- The continuous calving of the ice-shelf has been a cause of concern for scientists across the world, who have attributed it to global warming and climate change. Researchers in the UK have said that over one-third of the ice-shelves surrounding Antarctica could be at risk of collapsing and releasing massive amounts of water into the sea if global temperatures reach 4 degrees Celcius.
Places in News : Click Here
