World's Largest Iceberg Is On The Move After More Than Three Decades
Language
Reading Level
Listen to Article
Alignment
The world's largest iceberg is on the move after being stuck to the ocean floor for 37 years. A23a stretches almost 1,500 square miles (3,885 sq. km) wide, or about three times the size of New York City and its five boroughs. The massive slab of ice weighs over one trillion tons and stands 1,313 feet (400 m) tall. For comparison, the Empire State Building measures 1,250 feet (380 m) from top to bottom.
While A23a is currently the world's largest iceberg, it is not the biggest one to ever form. However, the others have all melted away, allowing the "megaberg" to reclaim the title several times.
When did A23a start to move?
A23a is one of three pieces of a larger iceberg, called A23, which broke off from Antarctica's Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986. While the other two floated away, A23a remained stuck in the Weddell Sea for over three decades. Dr. Andrew Fleming, at the British Antarctic Survey, first noticed some movement in the massive iceberg in 2020. But it has recently been gaining momentum driven by winds and currents.
Dr. Fleming does not attribute A23a's movement to warmer water temperatures.
"I asked a couple of colleagues about this, wondering if there was any possible change in shelf water temperatures that might have provoked it, but the consensus is the time had just come," he said."It was grounded since 1986, but eventually, it was going to decrease (in size) sufficiently to lose grip and start moving."
Where is A23a heading?
In late November 2023, A23a was seen drifting in the Southern Ocean just beyond the Antarctic Peninsula. Experts expect it to end up in "iceberg alley" in the South Atlantic and ultimately melt.
"All icebergs have that same fate, no matter how big they are," said Walter Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. "The bigger ones obviously last longer and tend to make it further."
What danger could A23a pose?
Experts are carefully monitoring how close the "megaberg" gets to South Georgia, an island in the South Atlantic Ocean. If it comes too close to shore, it could trap the island's penguins and other animals, preventing them from getting food in the open water.
"It could have ramifications since there's a lot of wildlife in South Georgia, both in the ocean and on land, and that could really disrupt the ecosystem there," Meier said.
Icebergs and climate change
Icebergs are pieces of ice shelves formed from historical snow compacted into ice millions of years ago. The dust particles and air bubbles trapped inside the layers are released when icebergs melt. They provide researchers a record of how air temperatures and carbon dioxide levels have changed over time.
Resources: BBC.com, Washingtonpost.com, CNBC.com
Get the Workbook for this article!
Workbook contains: Article, Reading Comprehension, Critical Thinking Questions, Vocabulary in Context (+ answers), Multiple Choice Quiz (+ answers), Parts of Speech Quiz (+ answers), Vocabulary Game (+ answers)Cite Article
Learn Keywords in this Article
21 Comments
aariana5 monthsoooh facinating! but we should keep an eye on it
live1005 monthsYeah you got that right.
walkerx3515 monthsthis was cool infomation
vynosavekize5 monthsscared and like cool at the same time
dogo22liamwang5 monthswow
tigersword5 monthsglobal warming is behind all of this; we must protect our planet
jacob1234563 monthsour planet is just going though its cycles... earth is just ever so slightly closer to the sun than a couple hundred years ago... people only talk about the ice ages but no one ever questions how we got from one to another...we went though hot periods too!!!! most notably the Jurassic period. why else would their be palm tree fossils in modern Alaska. all this global warming stuff is just panic about how we are STARTING to run out of fossil fuels but we have enough for another 100 years or so.
nukii5 monthsi hope this doesent go to california ..
arianamujra5 monthscool
firestarwarrior5 monthsIt's sad to think our next generations might not see the glory of the ice bergs and glaciers in the near future.
