A23a, once the largest iceberg in the world, will soon disappear because of warmer waters
A23a is drifting in waters where the temperature is well above freezing, and is ‘rapidly breaking up’ into several ‘very large chunks’
What was once the largest iceberg in the world may soon vanish into the vastness of the ocean.
Covering about 4,000 sq km (1,500 square miles) when it broke away, the iceberg – named A23a – was once roughly twice the size of Greater London, the largest city by land mass in western Europe.
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has been tracking the mega-iceberg for years and recently announced on the Bluesky platform that it was “rapidly breaking up” into several “very large chunks” after it began drifting north.
According to Andrew Meijers, a BAS oceanographer, the gigantic slab of ice has broken into substantial sections, each comparable in scale to large icebergs.
With the arrival of spring in the southern hemisphere, the iceberg is likely to break up into pieces too small to be tracked any further, he notes, and will eventually melt.