The world’s largest iceberg could be on a collision with Antarctic Ponguin Island: “Game of Thrones-Esque”

AND The world’s largest iceberg – Three times the size of New York- could descend toward the remote island where the scientist warns that he risks to the hindrance of feeding for baby penguins and seals.

The giant ice wall moves Slowly from Antarctica On a potential course of collision with southern Georgia and key soil for breeding wildlife In southern Atlantic.

Satellite paintings suggested that unlike the previous “Megaberg”, this Rogue did not fall into smaller pieces as he made his way through the southern ocean, said Andrew Meijers, a physical oceanographer in Antarctica’s British research.

He said the prediction that its exact course was difficult, but the prevailing current suggested that the coloss would reach a shallow continental shelf around the southern Georgia in two to four weeks.

But what might happen is the following speculation, he said.

This could avoid the shelf and be translated into open water outside southern Georgia, British foreign territory, some 870 miles east of Falkland Island.

Or could hit the sloping bottom and get stuck for months or break into pieces.

Meijers said this scenario could seriously prevent seal and penguins trying to feed and lift their young on the island. AND Island hosts 1.3 million Pingvin Chinstrap pairs – one of the world’s largest colonies – about 5 million seals and 65 million breeding birds.

“The iceberg has been founded there in the past, which caused significant mortality of penguins and seals,” he said.

Approximately 1,550 square kilometers, the largest and oldest world iceberg, known as A23AFlowed from the Antarctic shelves in 1986. Before flowing in 1986, the colossal iceberg hosted a Soviet research station. Falley

He remained stuck more than 30 years before he had freed himself in 2020, and her guest appearance in the north sometimes delayed the forces of the ocean that kept him spinning in place. In 2023. British research of Antarctica published a a Time laps of satellite imagesshowing the iceberg movement.

Ice Hill “Game of Thrones-Esque”

Meijers – who met an iceberg face to face while running a scientific mission at the end of 2023 – described a “huge white cliff, 40 or 50 meters high, which extends from the horizon to the horizon.”

“It’s just like this white wall. It’s actually a very kind of game of thrones-esque,” he said, citing the Dark Fantasy series.

The A23a followed the same path as the previous massive iceberg, passing the eastern side of the Antarctic peninsula through the sea of ​​Weddell along the route called “Alley ice hill.” It is the same current of water that the famous researcher Ernest Shackleton used in 1916 to make his escape from Antarctica after losing his ship, endurance. Legendary It was discovered by shipwreck near the coast of Antarctica in 2022.

Weighing a little below the trillion of the tone, this monstrous block of fresh water whipped with the most powerful ocean “jet stream” in the world – the Antarctic Circumpolar current.

Raul Cordero of the University of Santiago, Chile, which is also part of the National Antarctic Research Committee, said he was convinced that Iceberg would break through South Georgia.

“The island acts as an obstacle for ocean currents and therefore usually diverts water long before it reaches the island,” he said.

“The iceberg is moving with this flow of water, so the chances of hitting are not that high,” even though the pieces could, he said.

Another scientist, glaciologist Soledad Tirante, currently at Argentine’s research trip in Antarctica, said that the iceberg like the A23A “is” so deep that before arriving on the island or land mostly stuck “on the seabed.

Summer is in southern Georgia, and the inhabitants of Ponguin and seal along its southern coast were fed in frozen water to bring back food to macc.

“If the iceberg parks there, it will either physically block where they feed or will have to visit them,” Meijers said.

“This burns a huge amount of additional energy for them, so it is less energy for puppies and chickens, causing increased mortality.”

Population of seal and penguin on southern Georgia have already had a “bad season” with bird flu out “and that (iceberg) would have worsened,” he said.

As the A23A is ultimately melted, the seeds of water that stimulates phytoplacton growth, feeding whales and other species could be rustled, allowing scientists to study how such flowering are absorbed by carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Although the icebergs are natural phenomena, Meijers said that the rate they lost from Antarctica was increasing, probably due to climate change caused by man.

In January 2023, a massive piece of ice shelves of Antarctica – a a piece about the size of two New York city – released. The ice shelf with the ice sea lies over the sea of ​​Weddell from Larsen C ice shelves on the Antarctic peninsula. 2022 Larsen C ice shelf – which was about the size of New York and has long been considered stable – collapsed into the sea.