An iceberg 15 times the size of Paris broke off from Antarctica on Sunday, British scientists said Monday. With an area of 1550 square kilometers, it exceeds the Lucerne region with its 1490 square kilometers.
The phenomenon is not caused by climate change, although the region is threatened by global warming, according to the British Antarctic Survey (PAS).
Between 7:00pm and 8:00pm GMT (8:00pm and 9:00pm in Switzerland) on Sunday, the ice broke off from the ice cap, widening an existing crack in the ice during a high-amplitude storm. , named Chasm-1, described this system of research in the polar regions in a press release.
Two years ago, a glacier of nearly the same size had already formed in the same area, known as the Brunt Barrier, on which the British research station Halley VI is located. Glaciologists, who are on site from November to March, have been monitoring the progress of wide cracks in the ice sheet for ten years.
In 2016, BAS decided to move the station about twenty kilometers, fearing that it would end up in a glacier following the melting of the ice.
Detachment is expected
“This detachment was expected and is normal behavior of the Brunt barrier. It is not related to climate change,” glaciologist Dominic Hodgson was quoted as saying in the press release.
However, the continent is suffering the throes of global warming, with record-breaking temperatures last year, just like the rest of the planet.
Copernicus recently pointed out that the amount of snow there in February 2022 was the lowest in 44 years of satellite observations, the annual report of the European Program on Climate Change.
By 2021, a glacier 4000 km north of the 2017 ice cap has completely melted, releasing more than 150 billion tons of fresh water with nutrients.
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