Giant iceberg breaks off from Antarctica; see the video!

🎥 It’s chilling:

Although the region is threatened by global warming, detachment is not due to climate change, noted the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), a body that studies the polar regions.

The ice block, 1.550 km², detached after the strong tide widened the crack that already existed in the ice shelf, detailed the BAS.

Other iceberg of similar size had already broken off two years ago in the same region, called the Brunt ice shelf and on which the British Halley VI scientific base is located.

Large cracks in ice shelves have been increasing over the past decade, according to glaciologists.

“This calving was expected and is part of the natural behavior of the Brunt Ice Shelf. It is not linked to climate change”, explained glaciologist Dominic Hodgson, quoted in a note.

The continent, however, suffers the consequences of global warming. Last year, record temperatures were recorded in the region.

In February 2022, the ice extent in this part reached the minimum ever recorded in 44 years of satellite observations, the annual report of the European climate change program Copernicus recently indicated.

Collapse of the Antarctic ice cap can be prevented, scientists believe

The collapse of the polar ice cap in the western part of Antarctica, which could cause a catastrophic rise in sea levels, is not “inevitable”, according to a study published this Monday (16) in the journal Nature Communications.

In 2021, the melting of a iceberg, 4.000 km north of where it broke off in 2017, released more than 150 billion tons of fresh water mixed with nutrients, which worried scientists due to its impact on a fragile ecosystem.

(To AFP)

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