By Berk Kutay Gokmen
ISTANBUL (AA) - China’s Fengyun-3D satellite has revealed that A23a, once the largest iceberg in the world, is now in the final phase of disintegration, state-run Xinhua News reported on Sunday, citing the China Meteorological Administration.
Images taken on Jan. 14 showed that the iceberg’s main mass has diminished to about 506 square kilometers (195 square miles), less than one-eighth of its original area of 4,170 square kilometers (1,610 square miles) when it separated from Antarctica’s ice shelf in 1986.
The rate of collapse has increased sharply in recent weeks. Just three weeks earlier, the main section of A23a still covered 948 square kilometers (366 square miles).
Zheng Zhaojun, chief expert at the National Satellite Meteorological Center, said the iceberg is expected to completely disappear in the coming weeks.
This rapid deterioration is largely caused by hydrofracturing, a process in which meltwater pools and glacial lakes on the iceberg’s surface place intense pressure on the ice.
Summer conditions in the Southern Hemisphere are also further speeding up the iceberg’s decline.
Clearer skies, rising air temperatures, and seawater temperatures above 3 degrees Celsius (37.4F) are wearing away the ice, while ocean currents are carrying the fragments into warmer northern waters, Zheng said.