The world's biggest iceberg: 19-mile crack in the ice breaking away from Antarctica

An iceberg the size of New York will soon break free in a startling development caught on camera by Nasa's Terra spaceraft.

An astonishing photograph taken from outer-space illustrates how an iceberg the size of New York is close to breaking off from Antarctica.
A 19-mile crack in Pine Island Glacier's ice is clearly visible, leading some scientists to speculate that the world's biggest berg could soon be on the move.
The picture, taken by NASA's Terra spacecraft in November 2011 but only released today, shows how the crack is quickly growing. Just a month before it was only 18 miles long.


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Video of the ice shelf from last year,

Great post! Thanks for the info. Will definitely be watching how this goes as long as news coverage continues. S&F

Wow thats pretty big!!

So could there be any implications to this thing braking off?
i.e effect of weather or fresh water within the sea

Tow it to Africa to provide fresh drinking water for millions!

Build a city on it!

Run the Titanic into it!

reply to post by tarifa37


That's incredible! It reminds me of my favorite movie, The day after tomorrow. As seen here: movieclips.com...

It's amazing all of the little, and big, processes our planet goes through. Thanks for posting this!

Originally posted by boo1981
Wow thats pretty big!!

So could there be any implications to this thing braking off?
i.e effect of weather or fresh water within the sea

Ok so this happened in 2010.

An iceberg the size of Dorset has broken off from Antarctica and could disrupt weather patterns for years to come.
The iceberg, which measures 50 miles by 25 miles, snapped off the Mertz Glacier, a 100-mile long tongue of ice earlier this month.
It was dislodged by an older, 60-mile-long iceberg called B9B, which broke off the glacier in 1987.

Experts are now concerned that the iceberg - which contains enough fresh water to supply a fifth of the world's population for a year - could block the formation of cold, salty water, known as 'bottom water', which drives the ocean's circulation system.
Any changes to currents would affect weather patterns around the world. Britain would become far colder without the mild sea water brought from the south west by the North Atlantic drift.


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reply to post by boo1981


The implications could be huge.Once all the floating ice has broken free there would be nothing to stop the glacier from sliding into the sea and thus raising sea levels.

Pine Island has scientists' attention because it is both big and unstable - scientists call it the largest source of uncertainty in global sea level rise projections.NASA says. The rift is 260 feet wide along most of its length, but in places it is already 800 feet wide. It is 195ft deep.When the iceberg breaks free it will cover about 350 square miles of surface area.

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reply to post by tarifa37


Yes it is worrying, and with the one from 2010 aswell.
could be one of the factors to the erratic weather patters over the globe, just my thoughts.

reply to post by boo1981


As this photo was taken back in November this berg could have already broken free.

The picture, taken by NASA's Terra spacecraft in November 2011 but only released today, shows how the crack is quickly growing. Just a month before it was only 18 miles long.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk...

The picture was taken in november 2011,wonder what it looks like now or if it has moved?

Regards to all

Quick.... I'll bring the Baileys, you guys bring ice picks.

Is this just simply propaganda? Is this the cause of the volcanos under the sea down in the Antartica? Or should be be worried if afew more mega icebergs melt and we have another tsunami on our hands like that 8-10,000 years ago re the Black Sea?

Now we just need the world's biggest glass.

And the world's biggest bottle of scotch.

not trying to fear monger but is there any chance this could hit a land mass and cause damage/death???

Originally posted by tetriswoooo
not trying to fear monger but is there any chance this could hit a land mass and cause damage/death???

Hmmm not sure but my guess is it would melt before that.

reply to post by tarifa37


Interesting find I also find it interesting that NASA scientist are the scientist mentioned.

Gosh, I wondered what happened in history when there were no people to panic and interefere?

Do you think passages got blocked then, too?

All for towing it to thirsty people.

Oh Oh, This is not good news for Montgomery Brewster.


It will be interesting to see how the environment reacts.

Watching the video it would seem this is a fairly common natural event all be it a large one.The scientist in the film does not contribute it to global warming so the news item is a little contradicted. My question is, is this normal or not??

Isn’t this sort of thing an annual event, ok this one might be somewhat larger than normal but doesn’t ice melt, crack or breakup every summer.

I seem to remember that some areas of the Antarctic are losing ice cover whilst other areas are increasing