the largest iceberg in the world has started moving again

An iceberg, which is 3,900 km long²is adrift after not having moved for 35 years. “It’s called A23a, it’s the largest iceberg in the world”, specifies journalist Nicolas Chateauneuf on the set of 20 Heures, Tuesday November 28. It’s an iceberg said “tabular”, because it is completely flat and its particularity is that it has been immobile for a long time. “It was born in Antarctica. In 1986, it broke away from an ice shelf. Then it remained stuck all this time. Until 2020, when it started moving again, slowly, and then drifted northward until today”, explains the journalist.

Freed from its shackles

How to explain this movement? “A23a is 400 meters thick. So for 35 years, its submerged part, much deeper, had clung to the seafloor and anchored it. It slowly thinned until 2020, where it ‘is freed from its shackles’replies Nicolas Chateauneuf. “It is not directly linked to global warming, even if the region is particularly affected. It will continue its journey according to the sea currents. The concern is if it runs aground on the Georgian island of South (…) which is home to millions of penguins, seals and birds, which could be hampered in their search for food“, he adds.

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