A-76: World’s Largest Iceberg

  • An enormous iceberg 'A-76' has calved from the western side of the Ronne Ice Shelf, lying in the Weddell Sea, in Antarctica.
  • It measures around 4320 sq. km in size – currently making it the largest berg in the world. 
  • 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 Copernicus initiative (an earth observation programme).
  • It has surpassed the now second-place A-23A, about 3,380 sq km in size and also floating in the Weddell Sea.

ICERBERGS
  • An iceberg is ice that broke off from glaciers or shelf ice and is floating in open water.
  • Icebergs travel with ocean currents and either get caught up in shallow waters or ground themselves.
  • The US National Ice Center (USNIC) is the only organisation that names and tracks Antarctic Icebergs.
  • Icebergs are named according to the Antarctic quadrant in which they are spotted.
CALVING
  • Calving is the glaciological term for the mechanical loss (or simply, breaking off) of ice from a glacier margin.
  • Calving is most common when a glacier flows into water (i.e. lakes or the ocean) but can also occur on dry land, where it is known as dry calving.





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