01-06-2021 | 15:45 PM
A-76: World’s largest iceberg breaks
• A huge ice block has broken off from western Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest iceberg in the world and earning the name A-76.
• The newly calved berg 'A-76' was spotted in recent satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission. Sentinel-1 is one of the missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) under the Copernicus initiative (an earth observation program).
About the IceBerg
• A-76 is the latest in a series of large ice blocks to dislodge in a region acutely vulnerable to climate change, although scientists said, in this case, it appeared to be part of a natural polar cycle.
• The iceberg, measuring around 170 km long and 25 km wide, with an area of 4,320 sq km is now floating in the Weddell Sea.
• Slightly larger than the Spanish island of Majorca, A-76 had been monitored by scientists since it began to separate from the Ronne Ice Shelf.
• Every time an iceberg calves out from Antarctica, it adds up to the rising sea levels. However, in this case, the ice shelf from which this berg carved out was already floating on water.
