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Icebergs
Sometimes you can see them from miles away, hugh chunks of ice that seem larger than some islands. They are floating and slowly shrinking. Most of them, as large as they are, are only showing about 1/8 of their size because the rest of their bulk is below the water. Many a ship has found this out the hard way while trying to get around one. The berg pictured below was floating in the Ross Sea in Antarctica in 1998.
Picture Source: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Picture Source: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Courtesy Mike Vecchione The picture above shows a huge tabular iceberg in the Arctic's Southern Ocean's Weddell Sea. It sort of reminds one of a huge floating fortress with walls so high that they can't be scaled. When we say some icebergs are huge, we mean huge. To give you an example of the size of some of these brutes, in 2001 scientists put instruments on one, so they could track it. Its size was 100 miles long by 30 miles wide. When I said some of them were larger than some islands, I wasn't kidding. The largest icebergs break off in Antarctica but rarely drift into the shipping lanes. Since the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 ships and or planes from the International Ice Patrol search for icebergs in the North Atlantic. Icebergs are composed of fresh water not salt water. Because of the constant creation of icebergs we have lost some of the historical bases at the South Pole. Roald Amundsen's base from 1911-1912 is now gone as is the five Little America camps set up by Admiral Byrd in the late 1920s to the mid 1950s. In 2001 a large iceberg was detected by satellites. It was named B-21 and was 25 miles long and 9 miles wide. It came from Pine Island Glacier in the Amundsen Sea in Antarctica. Iceberg name come from the Antarctic Quadrant in which they were originally sighted if they are icebergs from the South Pole. In 2000 a hugh berg kept the Antarctic ice in the sea lanes from melting. As a matter of fact the ice became over 13 feet thick in some areas which was twice as thick as normal for that time of year. The US Coast Guard had to send a second ice breaker to help with the problem.
Picture Source: US Coast Guard Ice Patrol One can see how odd some of the shapes of these icebergs are. I like the picture in the middle, it almost looks like some type of ruin. From the time an iceberg breaks off (Calves) it takes about 4 years to melt. Of course it is not the same for each one since this is only an average figure. There is a place in the ocean called iceberg alley and it is located 250 miles east and southeast of Newfoundland, Canada. The most bergs found in the North Atlantic Ocean are the small and medium size bergs. The largest iceberg was roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island. Not all icebergs are found in the North Atlantic Ocean there are also icebergs around the ice shelves of Antarctica, a few near Alaska and near Siberia. Has global warming caused more icebergs? The scientists at Brigham Young University don't think so. They feel that better detection is responsible for the sightings of more icebergs. This point is being disputed by other scientists. Whatever the cause, these majestic structures will continue to float out to sea for the foreseeable future. |
