MOSCOW, November 28. The world's largest iceberg A23a will soon reach the Scotia Sea and may disappear, the press service of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute reported.
Scientists said that in mid-November it washed up in clean water in the Southern Ocean. It will probably soon cease to exist or remain in the Weddell Gyre system and will drift for several more years.
According to experts, the iceberg will be picked up by ocean currents coming from the Bransfield Strait to the east. The A23a will then travel along the South Orkney Islands before being carried out into the Scotia Sea. In this scenario, it will quickly disappear under the influence of wind, waves and warm ocean waters.
The institute clarified that over the past Antarctic winter the iceberg traveled 2,070 kilometers. This corresponds to the distance from St. Petersburg to Krasnodar. During the drift, A23a did not suffer significant losses in area – it is about 4170 square kilometers.
The history of one of the most gigantic icebergs began in September 1986, when the outer edge of the Filchner ice shelf broke off. For more than 30 years, A23a was stranded in the central Weddell Sea. In the spring of 2023, when it was winter in Antarctica, the iceberg began to actively drift towards the ice edge.
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