It is larger than the island of Mallorca and is made up of about 1,100 cubic kilometers of ice. This is A23a, the largest iceberg circulating in the planet’s oceans. And we can say that in circulation because, after several stops that amounted to years of stagnation, this mass of ice is once again moving through the ocean.
Back on track. A team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has observed that the largest iceberg in the world, called A23a, has restarted its march after a few months spinning around itself trapped by a rotating ocean current.
Now the ice block is at the mercy of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the clockwise flow of water that surrounds Antarctica. According to the team’s estimates, this current will put the iceberg on its way to South Georgia. As it enters these warmer waters, the iceberg will crack and melt until it disappears.
“It is exciting to see A23a moving again after periods of stagnation. We would be interested to see if it will take the same route as other large icebergs that broke off the Antarctic coast,” Andrew Meijers, from the BAS, indicated in a press release.
A23a. The A23a iceberg contains nearly one trillion tons of frozen water (980,000 million according to calculations made more than a year ago. A23 broke off in 1986 from the Filchner ice shelf, but remained stranded on the ground. Decades later, in 2020 , the main iceberg of this block, called A23a, broke free and began its journey, first slowly along the frozen Weddell Sea, where it had run aground.
RRS Sir David Attenborough. A year ago, BAS researchers were taking a closer look at the iceberg from the oceanographic vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough. They were watching him as he left the waters of the sea to enter the waters of the ocean.
However, its journey would not last long: during the southern winter, the iceberg became trapped in a Taylor column, a rotating current that would stop its march north of the Orkney Islands.
Ecological importance. The iceberg is of great importance for BAS oceanographers since it will allow them to study how this mass of ice from the Antarctic continent distributes nutrients along its route.
“We know that these giant icebergs can provide nutrients to the waters they pass through, creating thriving ecosystems in otherwise less productive waters. What we don’t know is what difference there may be between particular icebergs, their scale, and their origins,” added Laura Taylor, biochemist for the BIOPOLE mission.
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Image | NASA Earth Observatory, Wanmei Liang, with MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview, and Antarctic Iceberg Tracking Database
