A-76 World’s Largest Iceberg: A gigantic iceberg named ‘A-76‘ has broken off from the western part of the Ronne Ice Shelf, situated in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. This iceberg is massive, covering an area of about 4320 square kilometers, which currently makes it the largest iceberg in the world.
About A-76 Iceberg
- The biggest iceberg in the world has been discovered in Antarctica.
- It goes by the name A-76 and was identified through satellite images taken by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission.
Formation
- A big iceberg recently separated from Antarctica’s Ronne Ice Shelf.
- This iceberg is now drifting on its own in the Weddell Sea, which is a huge bay in western Antarctica.
Features
- Picture an iceberg that looks like a massive ironing board.
- It stretches about 170 kilometers in length and is 25 kilometers wide.
- The A-76 iceberg is a bit bigger than the Spanish island of Majorca.
Largest Existing Iceberg
- A-76 has officially taken the title of the biggest iceberg on Earth, surpassing the previous record-holder, A-23A.
- Both of these massive icebergs are currently drifting in the Weddell Sea.
Significance
- When icebergs like this one melt, they won’t cause a rise in sea levels. That’s because they were originally part of a floating ice shelf, kind of like how a melting ice cube doesn’t make your drink overflow.
- The key difference is that icebergs are already floating in the ocean, so their melting doesn’t contribute to higher sea levels. Unlike glaciers or ice sheets, which are on land and do raise global sea levels when chunks break off and melt into the ocean.
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