A Massive Iceberg Has Broken Away from Antarctica Doyle Rice - USA Today
go to original July 14, 2017

An Iceberg The Size of Delaware Just Broke In Antarctica (Vocativ)

One of the largest icebergs ever recorded broke off from an ice shelf in Antarctica, British scientists announced this week.

The 1 trillion ton iceberg, which is twice of the volume of Lake Erie, broke off from the Larsen C Ice Shelf between Monday and Wednesday, according to Project MIDAS, which has been monitoring the ice shelf. At 2,200 square miles, the chunk of floating ice is nearly the size of Delaware.

Over the past several months, an ever-lengthening and widening crack in the Larsen C ice shelf captivated the world. Now, the 120-mile crack first spotted in 2011 finally made its way back to the sea, "calving" off the massive berg.

"The iceberg is one of the largest recorded and its future progress is difficult to predict," said Adrian Luckman, a professor of Swansea University and the lead investigator of Project MIDAS. "It may remain in one piece but is more likely to break into fragments. Some of the ice may remain in the area for decades, while parts of the iceberg may drift north into warmer waters."

Previously, he said the iceberg breaking off "will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula." The calving reduced the size of the ice shelf by some 12%.

Read the rest at CNBC

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