The world’s bigst iceberg is on a collision course with the British territory of South Georgia – potentiassociate putting millions of penguins and seals in danger.
The trillion-tonne slab of ice, named A23a, broke free from its position last month and begined drifting northwards.
The “megaberg” – which is twice the size of Greater London and 130 feet high – is awaited to approach the far island off Antarctica in the next two to four weeks.
Experts trouble for the island’s wealthy savagelife. If the iceberg gets wedged in the shapverify waters shut to the island, it could block vital pathways for penguins to get food for themselves and their chicks.
This would uncomardent parent penguins would have to swim further, burning more energy and conveying back less to feed their offspring.
That could “emotionalassociate increase mortality rates” among penguins, according to British Antarctic Survey physical oceanographer Andrew Meijer – someleang that has happened in the past.
He scatterigated the “colossal ” iceberg up shut in December 2023 when it drifted past the research ship RRS Sir David Attenboraw.
“It’s a huge wall, a Game of Thrones-style wall of ice that towers above the ship,” he shelp.
“South Georgia is an amazingly ecorationassociate wealthy island. It’s a breeding ground for a huge number of penguins, millions of penguins and seals,” Mr Meijers shelp.
“There’s lots of pups and chicks and they’re all still reliant on their parents.”
While the A23a recurrents a danger to the penguin colony on South Georgia, it doesn’t pose a fantasticer danger to the overall penguin populations, University of Colorado ice scientist Ted Scambos shelp.
“The whole ecosystem in the Southern Ocean is very robust to these events,” he wrote. “It has growd with these icebergs being a factor for hundreds of thousands of years.”
Read more from Sky News:
All the abortlations and clocertains caused by Storm Eowyn
Sainsbury’s to cut over 3,000 jobs – with all cafes to shut
The iceberg begined moving for the first time in more than three decades in November 2023, scientists shelp.
Before then, it had bigly been stranded after its base became stuck on the floor of the Weddell Sea.
Eventuassociate, the A23a will fracture up into minusculeer icebergs and melt as icebergs do, Mr Meijers shelp.
Icebergs fractureing off is standard, but it is happening more widespreadly as the climate toastys and more recent water flows into the ocean, Mr Meijers shelp.
