The world’s largest iceberg, a massive ice wall the size of Rhode Island, is slowly moving towards a remote island off Antarctica, home to millions of penguins and seals.
According to a report from the Associated Press on January 23, this iceberg, weighing billions of tons and known as the giant iceberg A23a, could collide with South Georgia Island and potentially get stuck or be guided by ocean currents around the island. If the iceberg gets lodged, penguin parents feeding their babies may face difficulties, and some penguin chicks may even starve. However, overall, researchers are not too concerned about the iceberg causing significant harm.
Scientists say that what is happening is spectacular but not dangerous.
Andrew Meijers, a physical oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey, says that this phenomenon is also occurring more frequently due to human-induced climate change. In December 2023, Meijers observed the iceberg up close as it passed the British polar research vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough.
Meijers mentioned on Thursday (January 23) that the 130-foot (40-meter) tall iceberg is enormous, stretching from horizon to horizon.
“It’s a massive wall, a ‘Game of Thrones’-style ice wall,” he said.
Meijers explained that for every piece of iceberg above the water, there are ten times larger ice components below. The iceberg is moving at a slow pace of one meter every three to seven seconds, much slower than one mile per hour.
Meijers stated that in the next two to four weeks, the iceberg will approach South Georgia Island, where the waters are shallow, potentially causing it to become stuck or slide past.
“Large icebergs run aground on the shallow shoals around South Georgia every year – it’s the ‘superhighway’ for the big bergs,” wrote Ted Scambos, an ice scientist at the University of Colorado, in an email. “This flow directly past South Georgia has been known since the Shackleton era.”
He referred to Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, who led British expeditions to the Earth’s southern continent. Shackleton reached the island in just three weeks. “Large icebergs usually take much longer,” he said.
Meijers mentioned that eventually, the large iceberg will break off into smaller pieces and melt like other icebergs.
The iceberg may not pose significant danger to the region’s fishermen, but Meijers expressed more concern for penguins breeding during the summer.
“South Georgia Island has an extremely rich ecological environment. It’s a breeding ground for a large number of penguins and seals,” he said. “There are many chicks and nestlings that still rely on their parents.”
Parents travel far into the sea to find food. Icebergs could obstruct their feeding paths, causing adult penguins to swim farther, expend more energy, and bring back less energy to their chicks, “Unfortunately, this significantly increases the mortality rate. This has happened in the past,” Meijers said.
Scambos stated that while the iceberg may be a setback for the penguin colony, it is not a major problem for penguins as a whole.
“The entire ecosystem of the Southern Ocean is very resilient to such events,” he wrote. “For hundreds of thousands of years, these icebergs have been a factor influencing the ecosystem of the Southern Ocean.”
Meijers mentioned that the iceberg first broke off in 1986 but had been trapped in a dense sea ice area for decades until it returned to its original state a few years ago. He explained that iceberg breakup is normal, but such occurrences are happening more frequently nowadays.