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What can the world’s biggest iceberg tell us?

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The Inquiry: What can the world’s biggest iceberg tell us?

30/05/2024 GMT

BBC World Service - The Inquiry, What can the world’s biggest iceberg tell us?

How is Iceberg A23a impacting the ocean ?

Is the world’s biggest iceberg an indicator of climate change?

The current record holder for the world’s biggest iceberg is the A23a. Back in 1986 this colossus broke away from an Antarctic ice sheet. This process of breaking off or ‘calving’ as it is known is a natural part of the life cycle of an ice sheet. But A23a then became lodged in the Weddell Sea for more than thirty years, until four years ago a gradual melting allowed the berg to refloat. 

Since then it’s been steadily on the move, heading in the same direction as Antarctic icebergs before it, towards the warm waters of the Southern Ocean,  where it will eventually shrink from melting. 

As it travels, the iceberg has been playing an important role on the ecological environment around it, both in positive and negative ways.   
So, on this week on The Inquiry, we’re asking ‘What can the world’s biggest iceberg tell us?’


Contributors: 
Dr. Catherine Walker, Glaciologist, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts, USA 
Dr. Oliver Marsh, Glaciologist, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK 
Jemma Wadham, Professor of Glaciology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway  
Christopher Shuman, Research Associate Professor, NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre, Maryland, USA 


Presenter:  William Crawley  
Producer:  Jill Collins 
Researcher:  Katie Morgan 
Editor:  Tara McDermott 
Production Co-ordinator:  Ellie Dover

Image Credit: A23a in Antarctica, Jan 2024. Rob Suisted/Reuters/via BBC Images

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