A the world's largest iceberg .
A giant wall of ice is moving slowly from Antarctica on a potential collision course with Georgia Southern, a The most important place for breeding wildlife in the South Atlantic.
Satellite images suggested that unlike previous “megabergs”, this rogue did not break into smaller pieces as it made its way through the Southern Ocean, Andrew Meyers, a physical oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey, told AFP on Friday.
He said predicting its exact course was difficult, but prevailing currents suggested Kalos would reach the shallow continental shelf around South Georgia in two to four weeks.
But what might happen is a guess, he said.
It may escape the shelf and move into open water off south Georgia, a British overseas territory about 870 miles east of the Falkland Islands.
Or it could hit a sloping bottom and be stuck for months or smashed to pieces.
Omar Zaglul/Anadolu via Getty Images
Meyer said this scenario could seriously hamper the seals and penguins trying to feed and raise their young on the island. A Island hosts 1.3 million pairs of Chinstrap penguins – one of the world's largest colonies – about 5 million seals and 65 million birds that release.
“Icebergs have grounded in the past and this has caused significant mortality in penguin chicks and pups,” he said.
At approximately 1,550 square miles, the world's largest and oldest iceberg is known as A23acalving off the Antarctic shelf in 1986. Before its calving in 1986, a colossal iceberg carried a Soviet research station. weak
It remained trapped for more than 30 years before finally breaking free in 2020, its dusty journey north sometimes delayed by oceanic forces that kept it spinning in place. In 2023, the British Antarctic Survey placed Time interval of satellite imagesshowing iceberg movement.
“Game of Thrones-esque” Iceberg
Meyer – who came face-to-face with the iceberg while leading a science mission in late 2023 – described “a huge white rock, 40 or 50 meters high, stretching from horizon to horizon”.
“It's just like this white wall. It's very Game of Thrones-esque,” he said, referring to the Dark Fantasy series.
A23A followed roughly the same path as previous massive icebergs, passing from the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula through the Weddell Sea along a route called Iceberg Alley. This is the same current that famous explorer Ernest Shackleton used in 1916 to force his escape from Antarctica after the loss of his ship, the Endurance. Legendary A shipwreck was found off the coast of Antarctica in 2022.
Weighing in at a trillion tons, this monstrous block of fresh water was whipped up by the world's most powerful ocean “jet stream” – the Antarctic Gyre Current.
Raul Cordero of the University of Santiago in Chile, who also sits on the National Committee for Antarctic Research, said he was confident the iceberg would be headed for southern Georgia.
Andrew Meyers/AP
“The island acts as a barrier to ocean currents and therefore usually diverts water long before it reaches the island,” he said.
“The iceberg is moving with that water flow, so the chances of it hitting are not that high,” although chunks could, he said.
Another scientist, glaciologist Soledad Tiranti, currently on an Argentine reconnaissance voyage in the Antarctic, said that icebergs like A23A “are so deep that before reaching an island or mainland, they tend to get stuck on the seabed.
It's summer in South Georgia, and the resident penguins and seals along its southern shoreline are piling into the frigid waters to retrieve food to feed their young.
“If an iceberg parks there, it's either going to physically block where they're feeding from, or they're going to have to go around it,” Meyers said.
“It burns a huge amount of extra energy for them, so it's less energy for the puppies and chicks, which causes increased mortality.”
The seal and penguin populations on South Georgia were already having a “bad season” with the bird flu outbreak, “and that (the iceberg) would make it worse,” he said.
As A23A eventually melted, it could seed the water with nutrients that encourage the growth of phytoplankton, feeding whales and other species, while also allowing scientists to study how these thrive from the atmosphere.
While icebergs are natural phenomena, Meyer said the rate at which they are disappearing from Antarctica is increasing, likely due to human-induced climate change.
In January 2023 a piece the size of two New York cities – They broke free. The ice shelf on the ice shelf lies across the Weddell Sea from the location of the Larsen C Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. In 2022, the Larsen C Ice Shelf—which is roughly the size of New York City and long thought to be stable— fell into the sea.