Giant Iceberg the Size of Rome Dissolves – “Signs of What May Be Coming”

An enormous iceberg breaks away from the mainland in Antarctica. Experts calm down for the time being, but they fear a dramatic development.

London – With a size of about 1200 square kilometers, it has an area like Italy’s capital Rome. An iceberg this size has detached itself in Antarctica, according to a report.

Like the British Guardians reported that the mega iceberg broke off the mainland in mid-March. Polar researchers are said to have confirmed this to the newspaper. The US National Ice Center also announced that the iceberg had completely detached itself from Antarctica. The term ice shelf (also ice shelf) stands for large sheets of ice that float on the sea, but are still connected to the mainland.

It’s not the first enormous iceberg to set off from there. The world’s largest iceberg broke off in Antarctica last year.

Antarctica: Iceberg the size of Rome detaches – “signs of what may be to come”

According to NASA expert Catherine Colello Walker, the Conger ice shelf is also “one of the most significant ruptures in Antarctica since the early 2000s”. The researcher considers major effects of the ice shelf break-off to be unlikely. “It’s a sign of what may be coming,” she warned in an interview with the Guardians.

The shrinking of the Conger Ice Shelf had already progressed in the middle of the first decade after the turn of the millennium, Walker described. First at a rather leisurely pace. Since the beginning of 2020, however, the pace has increased extremely. After all, the surface of the iceberg on March 4, 2022 was only half its size in January this year. Immediately after that, the giant iceberg began to move, satellite data shows.

But what does the journey of the Conger Ice Shelf mean for sea levels? Matt King, head of an Antarctic research center in Australia, says there’s nothing to worry about for now. He does not believe that a sharp rise in sea level, caused directly by the iceberg break-off in the Anarctic, is possible. The glacier behind the Conger ice shelf is too small for that. “We’re going to see more ice shelves break off with global warming,” King told dem Guardians and considers the latest phenomenon in the Antarctic Circle to be a worrying harbinger: “We will see huge icebergs, much larger than this one, breaking off that are currently holding back large masses of ice – enough to cause global sea levels to rise significantly.”

Antarctica too warm: Alarming rise in temperature sets records

The World Weather Organization (WMO) is observing “extraordinary and unprecedented heat” in eastern Antarctica these days. On March 18, for example, minus 12.2 degrees was measured at the Concordia research station. This temperature is 40 degrees warmer than the average value of the weather in this region at this time of the year. The mildest March value there so far was also 20 degrees colder.

Actually, the region in question is known as the driest, windiest and coldest in the world. According to meteorologists, an “atmospheric flow” is the reason for the unprecedented temperatures and the atypical climate. This is a band of moisture-saturated air a few kilometers above the earth’s surface that transports heat and moisture. Many experts agree that the extent to which the atmospheric flow is also related to the break-off of the ice needs further research. (kh)