Iceberg A68 is Gone

Earlier posts followed the birth and migration of the large Antarctic berg, A68.

This month, A68 has been declared done, finally disintegrated and melted into the Atlantic [1].  This berg was documented by satellites and aircraft, giving a fairly detailed history from before birth, calving in 2017, wandering the currents, to the final melt in April 2021.

Sic Transit Gloria.

NASA produced a video summary:

Bergs off sea ice do not affect overall sea level because the ice is from the ocean.  But the pace and process of ice sheets melting and calving is ultimately important to the Earth’s climate.  For one thing, open water has lower albedo than ice cover, which absorbs more solar energy. 

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1. Kathryn Hansen, Lauren Dauphin, Joshua Stevens, Jesse Allen, and Christopher Shuman, Tracking an Antarctic Iceberg’s Epic Journey, in NASA Earth Observatory, April 22, 2021. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148213/tracking-an-antarctic-icebergs-epic-journey