Shaved: A huge iceberg skims over the Burnt ice shelf in Antarctica

Ice shelf in Antarctica.

Thursday, 26th August 2021

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced last week that earlier this month, the Brent ice shelf at the western end of Antarctica had a devastating collision with a 1,270 square kilometer iceberg.

If the impact is stronger, a piece larger than the iceberg A74 will fall off the ice shelf, ESA said. The iceberg broke from Brent in late February this year. The powerful ocean current prevented it from floating westward in the Wendell Sea and stayed near the west coast of the continental shelf for six months.

The strong east wind changed the direction of the huge ice mass in early August. It began moving south, passing slightly over the western tip of Brent, as captured by the agency's Copernicus Sentinel 1 satellite. The satellite image shows that a nose-shaped part of West Brent, which covers an area of ??1,700 square kilometers, is about to fall from the ice shelf due to an expanding chasm (Gap 1).

ESA's Mark Drinkwater said: "If the iceberg hits this block of ice more violently, it can accelerate the breakdown of the remaining ice bridge, causing it to break.", the part was still stranded on the seabed and attached to Brent.

The breaking of icebergs and the rapid melting of the polar ice caps are due to global warming of the land and oceans. According to Samrat Sengupta, director of the Climate Change and Renewable Energy Program at the Center for Science and Environment, a non-profit organization in Delhi, these events have led to unprecedented rises in sea levels and changes in ocean currents.

Sea level rise flooded low-lying coastal areas and threatened local communities and the biosphere. The Sundarban Delta is the largest mangrove biosphere in the world. Sea level rises 30mm each year, followed by severe land erosion. If it is not stopped, the crisis may worsen in the near future and threaten Calcutta.

The 130-meter-thick ice shelf is home to the British Antarctic Association's Halley VI Observatory. The research station was originally located near the First Canyon, but as the cracks began to expand, it moved 20 kilometers east in 2017.

The News Talkie Bureau

Source:

Downtoearth