An iceberg that had become the largest iceberg on Earth named A68a continues to melt and melt 152 billion tons of water onto the surrounding islands.
This much water was produced in the last three months, and has the potential to impact ecosystems in the area. In comparison, 150 billion tons of water can fill more than 60 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.
This A68a iceberg in July 2017 also attracted public attention, because it broke and separated from the Antarctic Peninsula. Well, three years later a study emerged that revealed how much water had melted from the iceberg.
His research was carried out using five satellites to observe the iceberg. That is by calculating how much area and thickness of the iceberg as it shifts into the Scotia Sea through the Antarctic Weddel Sea.
As the iceberg shards approached the South Georgia region in December 2020, researchers began to fear that this iceberg was somewhat disturbing wildlife in the remote area.
Then came the study, which revealed the fact that in the three-month period between 2020 and 2021, A68a thaws rapidly as they pass through the warmer Drake Passage region.
"This is a very large amount of water and what we want to investigate next is whether there is a positive or negative impact on the ecosystem in South Georgia," said Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, as quoted from Live Science, Wednesday (26/1/2022).
When separated from the Larsen C layer on the Antarctic Peninsula, the area of A68a is 6,000 square kilometers, or slightly larger than the island of Bali, which is 5,780 square kilometers.
But now the volume continues to decrease because A68a continues to melt. In April 2021, it was recorded that the iceberg had melted 1 trillion tons of water.