For the past three years, satellite missions like Copernicus Sentinel-1 have been used to track the massive iceberg that has migrated in the Southern Ocean. This map contains historical iceberg tracks, based on data from a number of satellites, including ESA’s ERS-1 and ERS-2 as part of the Antarctic Iceberg Tracking Database, and shows that A-68A is following this well-trodden path. Credit: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017-20) processed by ESA. Antarctic Iceberg Tracking Database
The Colossus Iceberg, which separated from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica on July 12, 2017, is on a collision course with South Georgia.
For the past three years, satellite missions like Copernicus Sentinel-1 have been used to track the mountain as it drifted in the Southern Ocean. For the first two years it stayed near its mother ice cover, which was obstructed by sea ice. But now, as the map shows, the main part of the A-68 mountain, known as the A-68A, is fast heading into South Georgia. It is now about 350 km from the island.
About the size of the South Atlantic island, it could land in the shallow waters off the coast, creating real problems for the island’s wildlife and life on the seabed. Penguins and seals need access to the ocean for food so that the iceberg can easily block their food routes and destroy life on the ocean floor when the mountain floor is free. The fear is that if the mountain anchored off the coast of South Georgia, it could stay there for up to 10 years. When the A38 landed here in 2004, many dead penguin chicks and pups were found along the coast.
The map includes historical iceberg tracks, based on data from a number of satellites, including ESA’s ERS-1 and ERS-2 as part of the Antarctic Iceberg Tracking Database, and shows that A-68A is following this well-trodden path. Hopefully the currents will take the A-68A around South Georgia and northwest and eventually break up.
