Jakarta –
Scientists can now describe the true scale of gunung it the world’s largest, A23a which is currently moving in Antarctica. Satellite measurements show the frozen massif has a total average thickness of more than 280 meters.
Combined with a known area of 3,900 square km, the volume is about 1,100 cubic km and the mass is just under one trillion tonnes.
This iceberg is truly giant. For comparison, the London skyscraper 22 Bishopsgate is 278 meters high. The total size of A23a is also twice the size of Greater London.
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A23a measurements were carried out by the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2. This veteran spacecraft carries a radar altimeter that is capable of detecting how large a volcano’s mass is above the water surface.
“Altimetry satellites such as CryoSat-2, which measures the distance to the surface of the iceberg and the sea surface, allow us to monitor the thickness of the iceberg from space,” Dr Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, from the University of Tromsø – Norwegian Arctic University was quoted as saying detikINET from the BBC.
Born from the mass breakup of icebergs from the Filchner Ice Shelf, in the southern Weddell Sea, A23a a was an “ice island” for more than three decades before breaking free recently. A23a gradually loses mass until it finally starts to move.
A23a has now reached the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Scientists will follow its movements.
Like most ice floes from the Weddell sector, A23a will almost certainly be thrown into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which will ‘toss’ it towards the South Atlantic via a pathway known as the ice floes passageway. In the end, all pieces of ice, no matter how large, will melt and perish.
Watch the video “Antarctica’s giant iceberg moves after 30 years”
[Gambas:Video 20detik]
(fyk/fyk)
2023-12-17 02:40:39
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