Penguins spared after Mammoth Iceberg divided into smaller pieces

Then there was the matter of the penguins.

Ecologists feared that the large colonies of king and gentoo penguins on the island would have to make major detours to reach their usual hunting grounds, with potentially serious consequences for chicks waiting on the land.

Instead, more than three years after the Larsen C ice shelf of Antarctica calved about 930 miles to the south, warmer waters and the torque of the streams crushed the mouth into a dozen pieces, now known as the A68b, A68c, and so on under the U.S. name system of the U.S. National Ice Center. It now looks like they are drifting north, where it could be a bigger problem for people.

“As it erupts, thousands of smaller icebergs have the potential to impede shipping lanes in the area, especially as they disperse,” said Andrew Fleming, head of remote sensing at the British Antarctic Survey, who followed the journey of the A68a north through images. provided by the European Space Agency and flies by the British Air Force.

The largest section, still called the A68a, is 330 square miles[330 km]larger than New York City, with several sections almost as large. The break-up of A68a means that the largest iceberg is now A23a, which broke off from Antarctica in 1986 but still remains on the seabed.

A team from the British Antarctic Survey is on its way from the Falkland Islands to assess the impact of the icebergs on the marine ecology of the area and gain some insight into what can be expected as the Antarctic ice shelf becomes more gigantic mountains as worldwide calf. temperature rises.

“Everyone is doing everything they can to make this happen,” said oceanographer and team leader Povl Abrahamsen aboard RRS James Cook, who will arrive at the icebergs in mid-February.

However, sailing in a pack of vast icebergs can be difficult. Besides the mountains themselves, especially the parts below the surface, there are waterfalls of ice melting and the prospect of more pieces breaking down and causing big waves. To mitigate the risk, the mission includes two underwater robotic aircraft to take samples that enable the team to get a better idea of ​​what kind of impact such large icebergs have on ocean conditions outside South Georgia, one of the largest biologically rich places on the planet and one of the world’s largest protected marine areas.

The biggest concern is how the melting mountains could disrupt the food chain of the ocean. An influx of cold fresh water can kill microscopic marine organisms called phytoplankton, which starve the krill that feed on them and deplete the population of fish, seals, penguins and whales.

The area is so abundant in marine life that Norwegian whalers established a whaling station on South Georgia in the early 20th century, which has since been abandoned.

Today, there are no permanent residents on the island, only a rotating team of ecologists and other scientists watching fish stocks and other wildlife, including albatrosses and seals.

However, the island is becoming increasingly important as a base to track the number of icebergs that break off from the Antarctic ice and break north to warmer waters.

Although icebergs have always broken off or calved from the ice, the concern is that a warming climate will flatten it like a melting snow cone and drive more ice to the edge of the continent, where it could eventually break down.

In a study published earlier this week, two geophysicists from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark warned that climate change could cause ocean levels to rise faster than initially feared, which could increase the flood risk for heavily populated coastal regions.

Aslak Grinsted and Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen searched for data dating back centuries and found that ocean levels could rise by more than a meter if world temperatures rose by 2 degrees Celsius, more than current projections accepted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is, and by half a meter if the temperature rises by only half a degree Celsius.

Write to James Hookway by [email protected]