This is the first such event in the past 55 years.
In East Antarctica, an iceberg D28 broke away from the Aymery Ice Shelf, reports the BBC with reference to the European Copernicus program.
The area of D28 is about 1600 square kilometers, which is 15 times the territory of Paris and five times the area of Malta. This ice giant weighs 315 billion tons, and its thickness is estimated at 210 meters. The movement of the iceberg was recorded using satellites.
However, scientists were quick to reassure the public after media publications. As explained by Helen Amanda Fricker, a glaciologist at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (USA), "the calving of the glacier (breaking icebergs off shelf or land ice - Ed.) Is part of the healthy life cycle of the ice shelf." In addition, this event has nothing to do with climate change, as many might think, and will not affect the level of the World Ocean.
D28 broke away from Aymery.
Scientists say they knew that sooner or later D28 would split from Aymery for 20 years.
“But it will be interesting to see how the loss of this iceberg affects the melting of the ocean beneath the remaining ice shelf and the rate at which ice is disappearing from the continent,” said Australian glaciologist Ben Galton-Fenzi.
The 40,000-square-kilometer Aymery Glacier is the third largest shelf in Antarctica, located next to the Australian research stations Davis and Mawson (between the Lars Christensen Shores (Mac Robertson Land) and Ingrid Christensen (Princess Elizabeth Land)).
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Scientists have been studying Aymery since the middle of the last century, and, according to their data, the last large calving occurred in late 1963 - early 1964: then an iceberg with an area of 11 thousand square kilometers broke away from the glacier.
Maria Azarova