Iceberg the size of ACT breaks away

The Age

Saturday February 27, 2010

By ANDREW DARBY

AN ICEBERG the size of the ACT has broken off an Antarctic glacier. The 2545-square-kilometre iceberg broke from the Mertz Glacier tongue when a decade of slow splitting climaxed with another giant iceberg hitting the glacier this month.The iceberg, estimated to weigh about 860 billion tonnes.Its position near a polynya, or open "lake" in the winter pack ice, means it may affect global ocean circulation, according to scientists at the Antarctic Co-operative Research Centre in Hobart. Glaciologist Neal Young said the iceberg's split from the glacier was a natural event, in contrast to rapid break-offs from the Antarctic Peninsula ice shelf, where the climate is warming. The most dramatic changes have occurred since 1990.New research by the US Geological Survey has found every ice front in the southern Antarctic Peninsula has been in retreat over the past 63 years.

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