After being stuck to the ocean floor for over 30 years, the world's biggest iceberg, A-23a, is finally on the move! The iceberg, which broke off from the Antarctic coastline in 1986, had been grounded in the Weddell Sea, but it has now broken free and is drifting towards warmer waters.
The iceberg has an area of 4,000 sq km, which is close to that of the emirate of Dubai, which is spread across 4,114 sq km.
Dr Andrew Fleming, a remote sensing expert from the British Antarctic Survey, told the BBC, "I asked a couple of colleagues about this, wondering if there was any possible change in shelf water temperatures that might have provoked it, but the consensus is the time has just come."
"It was grounded since 1986 but eventually it was going to decrease (in size) sufficiently to lose grip and start moving. I spotted first movement back in 2020."
According to the Guniness World Record, unlike many of the large icebergs that detach from Antarctica and float away, A23A has only moved a few hundred kilometres since it was "born" from the Filchner Ice Shelf in August 1986. This is because it is grounded (stuck) on the sea floor and, as a result, is less vulnerable to fragmenting.
The GWR further stated that the record for the largest current iceberg changes hands most years, as new icebergs are calved off the Antarctic continent and subsequently break into smaller fragments. The former record holder was A76, which detached from the Ronne Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea in May 2021 but has since fragmented into three pieces. As a result, the new record passes back to A23A.
