Name: Iceberg A68a on course to collide with South Georgia penguin colony island
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Iceberg A68a on course to collide with South Georgia penguin colony island

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World's biggest iceberg on collision course with penguin islandWe’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.DismisscloseAdvertisementBy Log in, or to save articles for later.Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text sizeAdvertisementMexico City: An enormous iceberg is heading toward South Georgia Island in the southern Atlantic, where scientists say a collision could devastate wildlife by threatening the food chain.Scientists have long been watching this climate-related event unfold, as the iceberg - the size and shape of Jamaica – has meandered and advanced over two years since breaking off from the Antarctic peninsula in July 2017.The peninsula is one of the fastest-warming places on Earth, registering a record high temperature of 20.75 degrees Celsius on February 9. The warming has scientists concerned about ice melt and collapse leading to higher sea levels worldwide.The gigantic iceberg - dubbed A68a - is on a path to collide with South Georgia Island, a remote British overseas territory off the southern tip of South America. Whether that collision is days or weeks away is unclear, as the iceberg has sped up and slowed down with the ocean currents along the way, said Geraint Tarling, a biological oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey who has been tracking the icy mass.A collision, while looking increasingly likely, could still be avoided if the currents carry the iceberg past the island, Tarling said.The currents "still have the power to take this iceberg in one direction or another away from South Georgia," Tarling said in an interview on Wednesday. "But it is really, really close, less than 50 kilometers away from the south shelf edge. That's getting so close that it's almost inevitable."Images captured by a British Royal Air Force aircraft show the magnitude of the monstrous, 4,200-square-km iceberg, its surface carved with tunnels, cracks and fissures. A number of smaller ice chunks can be seen floating nearby."The sheer size of the A68a iceberg means it is impossible to capture its entirety in one single shot," British officials said in a statement.AdvertisementStill, the berg is diminished from its original size of 5,800 square kms, measured when the mass broke off from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf 2-1/2 years ago.Scientists fear that the iceberg, in hitting the island, could crush marine life on the sea floor, including coral, sponges and plankton. Should it lodge at the island's flank, it could block seals along with the island's 2 million penguins from their normal foraging routes.Some species, like King penguins, travel for up to 16 days to find food. If the berg gets in the way, that foraging trip could take longer."And that's unlikely to be sustainable. The chicks will start to lose mass," Norman Ratcliffe, a seabird biologist in the Ecosystems Division of the British Antarctic Survey, said in an interview on Wednesday.A68a could also be an obstacle to government ships conducting fishery patrols and surveillance around South Georgia and the nearby South Sandwich Islands, British officials said.Iceberg A68a has been on a slow journey toward potential disaster.The huge ice mass, which broke from the Antarctic's Larsen C ice shelf in July 2017, slid toward the open ocean for over two years until it hit the powerful Circumpolar Current that circles the continent.That propelled the berg north-east through what scientists call "iceberg alley", and it's now headed straight for South Georgia Island and could hit the remote world in the southern Atlantic teeming with wildlife within days.At 4,200 square kilometres, the berg is bigger than Singapore."There's nothing that's really been that large before in scientific history that we've seen coming up to South Georgia,” said Geraint Tarling, a biological oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey."Normally we'd expect these icebergs to break apart in the open ocean."Scientists say the iceberg could grind over the island's shelf, crushing underwater life. If it lodges at the island’s flank, it could remain a fixture for up to 10 years before the ice melts or breaks away, Tarling said.That could block some of the island’s 2 million penguins from reaching the waters to feed their young. Melting freshwater also could make the waters inhospitable for phytoplankton and other creatures in the food chain.A68a has the scientific community debating if its creation was a consequence of climate change, and whether more such monster bergs are to come.There have been few larger in recent history, the biggest being B-15, which measured 11,000 square kilometers when it broke from Antarctica’s Ross ice shelf in March 2000.Whether climate change was directly, or partially, responsible for destabilising Larsen C is a matter of debate, said Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder.Scientists have limited understanding of how the ice behaved historically, as satellite monitoring began only in recent decades, he said. And the continent is influenced by other variables, including strong winds and weather patterns in the tropics.Log in, or to save articles for later.Advertisement

World's biggest iceberg on collision course with penguin islandWe’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.DismisscloseAdvertisementBy Log in, or to save articles for later.Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text sizeAdvertisementMexico City: An enormous iceberg is heading toward South Georgia Island in the southern Atlantic, where scientists say a collision could devastate wildlife by threatening the food chain.Scientists have long been watching this climate-related event unfold, as the iceberg - the size and shape of...

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Cassandra Garrison

The Sydney Morning Herald - Australia's leading news source. Independent. Always.

Iceberg A68a on course to collide with South Georgia penguin colony island

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