The A-74 iceberg is the size of 1.5 cities in Paris, (slightly smaller than Los Angeles), and broke off the Antarctic Brunt Ice Shelf earlier this year. For the past six months, the giant has remained close to the shelf from which it was separated due, in large part, to ocean currents. In early August, however, strong easterly winds swirled the iceberg around Brunt's westernmost tip, lightly skimming the ice shelf before continuing south. Radar images, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, show the movement of this massive 1,270-square-kilometer iceberg from August 9-18.
Had this drifting colossus hit the unstable ice shelf harder, it could have triggered the release of a new 1,700-square-kilometer iceberg. “The nose-shaped piece of the ice shelf, which is even larger than A-74, remains very loosely connected to the Brunt ice shelf. If the iceberg had collided more violently with this piece, it could have accelerated the fracture of the remaining ice bridge, causing it to rupture. We will continue to monitor the situation routinely using satellite images from Sentinel, "Mark Drinkwater, a member of the European Space Agency, explained in a statement.
Text: European Space Agency
