World’s Biggest Iceberg A-76
Source : The Hindu
GS II : Salient features of world’s physical geography
GS III : Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Why in News ?

An enormous iceberg, a little bigger than the state of Rhode Island, has broken off of Antarctica.

Key Facts

• An enormous iceberg has calved from the western side of the Ronne Ice Shelf, lying in the Weddell Sea.
• 105 miles (170 kilometers) long and 15 miles (25 kilometers) wide was spotted by satellites as it calved from the western side of Antarctica’s Ronne Ice Shelf, according to the European Space Agency.
• The berg is floating freely on the Weddell Sea
  • A large bay in the western Antarctic where explorer Ernest Shackleton once lost his ship the Endurance to pack ice.
• Iceberg which now the world’s biggest and has been called A-76 after the Antarctic quadrant where it was first spotted.
• The event won’t directly impact sea levels.
• Ice shelves help to slow the flow of glaciers and ice streams into the sea.
• But the loss of parts of an ice shelf eventually contributes to rising seas.
• The continent of Antarctica, which is warming at a faster pace than the rest of the planet, holds enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by 200 feet (60 meters).
• A76 and A74 are both just part of natural cycles on ice shelves.

The largest iceberg on record, B15, broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000 measuring more than 4,200 square miles.

Melting of Antartica

• Ronne Ice Shelf, which birthed the recent iceberg, is mostly spared from influxes of warm water that disrupt the Antarctic’s natural cycle of ice calving and regrowth.
• Doomsday Glacier was discovered to be melting faster than previously.
  • This was due to a warm water current from the east whittling away at the vital pinning points that anchor the shelf to the land.

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