Massive iceberg bears down on Antarctic ice tongue

A monstrous iceberg – nearly as large as New York’s Long Island – has barreled along the Antarctic coastline, coming to a stop at a well-known geographic feature of Antarctica, a floating tongue of ice hitched to the Ross Ice Shelf. The iceberg, known to scientists as C-16, is being monitored by satellite by scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Antarctic Meteorological Research Center (AMRC). Currently, it is cushioned by sea ice from colliding with a feature known as the Drygalski Ice Tongue, a spit of ice that protrudes 50 miles into the ocean. Scientists are unsure of how long the iceberg will stay moored next to the ice tongue, or what damage it may do. Should the tongue break loose from its hold on the Ross Ice Shelf, it could alter ocean currents along the Scott Coast of Antarctica and would change the region’s climate, according to meteorologist George Weidner of UW–Madison’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

C-16 is being monitored by the ARMC, an arm of UW–Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center, under the direction of meteorologist Shelley Knuth. Knuth is creating new images of C-16 daily, showing its migration in the Ross Sea. Both C-16 and the Drygalski Ice Tongue have automated weather stations and Global Positioning System transmitters installed by teams of scientists from UW–Madison and the University of Chicago.

University of Chicago glaciologist Douglas MacAyeal notes that another large iceberg, B15-A, came dangerously close to whacking the Drygalski Ice Tongue last year.

Updated images of the iceberg are available daily.