At 4,000 square kilometers in size – about ten times the size of Vienna – the A23a iceberg is considered the largest in the world. And he also moves unusually fast: this brings him even closer to his demise.
Spectacular images from an Eyos Expeditions ship show the condition of the gigantic iceberg. This is currently drifting through the ocean away from Antarctica. As the footage shows, the forces of nature are giving it a hard time on its journey: it is slowly but surely being crushed by the warmer air and surface water it encounters, the BBC reports.
“Eventually it will melt and disappear,” the station wrote. It is unclear when this will happen. Expedition leader Ian Strachan reported: “We saw waves of three to four meters high crashing into the mountain.”
Thick fog above the cliffs caused drama
He therefore spoke of a “constant state of erosion”. The Eyos team got close enough to the iceberg in mid-January to take drone images. The mountain’s 100-foot cliffs were surrounded by thick fog. “It was dramatic and beautiful to photograph,” Eyos videographer Richard Sidey told the channel.
Eisberg only started after thirty years
The European Space Agency reported in December based on satellite images that the currently largest iceberg was moving relatively quickly from the Antarctic waters. The iceberg broke off from the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf in 1986, but remained stuck on the seabed for a long time. In 2020 it had loosened up a bit, but only now is it making a spurt, driven by wind and current.
Iceberg will melt from bottom to top
Like most icebergs from the so-called Weddell sector, it is likely to end up in the South Atlantic Ocean, according to the ESA. This also happened with the A76, previously the largest iceberg in the world. “As it has now drifted towards warmer waters, it will gradually melt from below and of course there is also the possibility that it will become increasingly unstable,” the sea ice physicist explained to SWR. It is likely that it will break into several pieces and lose its status as the largest iceberg in the world.
Source: Krone
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