A large iceberg has broken off the 150-meter-thick Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica, according to scientists. At 380 square kilometers, the chunk is about the size of the British island of the Isle of Wight, said the research organization British Antarctic Survey (BAS). It is the third demolition in this area in the past four years. It is very likely not related to climate change, the statement continued.
Rather, it was expected since a 14 kilometer long crack suddenly appeared in the ice shelf a few weeks ago and formed a right angle to the existing Halloween crack. “This calving has been expected since the Halloween Crack appeared eight years ago and reduces the total area of the ice shelf to the smallest extent since monitoring began,” said researcher Oliver Marsh, who discovered the calving using GPS data. Calving is the breaking off of larger masses of ice from glaciers that end in the sea or in inland waters. The demolition took place early Monday morning.
BAS scientists discovered large cracks in the ice in the region about ten years ago. The British research station Halley was then moved a good 20 kilometers further inland in 2016 as a precautionary measure so as not to be endangered in the event of demolitions. Researchers are on site from November to March – during the Antarctic summer. In the remaining months, the region will be observed using satellite images from the space organizations Esa and Nasa as well as the German satellite “TerraSAR-X”.