An iceberg with an area of \u200b\u200babout 1.5 thousand. Square kilometers separated from the 150-meter-thick Brant ice shelf. This happened 10 years after specialists first noticed huge cracks in the shelf. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS), a government scientific organisation, said the latest event was not a result of climate change, which is accelerating ice loss in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica.
The glacier has vanished
The observed phenomenon is a natural process associated with the formation of a new iceberg. This is the so-called calving of the iceberg, when individual fragments break off from it. Earlier, an iceberg with an area of \u200b\u200babout 1.3 thousand square meters broke away from Antarctica. square kilometers.
This event was expected and is part of a normal operation at Brunt Ice Shelf. It’s not about climate change, said Dominic Hodgson, a glaciologist at BAS.
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Professor Dame Jane Francis, Director of the BAS, adds that measurements of the ice shelf are made several times a day Using an automated network of precise GPS instruments that surround the station. They measure the deformation and motion of the ice shelf and compare it to satellite images from the European Space Agency, NASA and Germany’s TerraSAR-X satellite. Thanks to this, scientists can predict the changes that occur in the glacier, including the moment of its birth.
The British research station Halley VI monitors the condition of the huge floating ice shelf daily, but the final crack has no effect on him. The mobile science base was moved indoors for safety reasons in 2016-17 as cracks in the ice threatened to cut it open.
There are currently 21 researchers on site. Hodgson confirms that the science and operations teams continue to monitor the ice shelf in real time to ensure its safety.
