How Big Is Iceberg A68? Would Cover All 50 States In 4.6" Of Ice; Form A Sphere 8 Miles In Diameter
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Using satellites from the European Space Agency, scientists have estimated that the iceberg will cover 2,550 square miles, just slightly larger than the state of Delaware. With an average thickness of 625 feet, the iceberg will contain 277 cubic miles of ice.
This volume of ice is colossal and can be visualized several ways:
It would coat all 50 states in a layer of ice 4.6 inches deep
It would be a sphere of ice 8 miles high, literally edging into the stratosphere
It would reach more than halfway to the way to the moon if squeezed into the area of a football field
It would be slightly larger than the nucleus of Halley’s Comet (250 cubic miles)
The new iceberg will remove about 10 percent of the ice shelf’s area. Losing that much ice at once will likely change the way the remaining ice behaves. Most researchers don’t think that a collapse in the near future is likely, because of the large amount of ice Larsen C still has, but they’ll still be watching the ice shelf closely for signs of weakness.
An ice shelf is a floating area of ice adjacent to the land. Antarctica’s ice shelves act as doorstops that hold back glaciers and the continent’s vast stores of land ice. Once an ice shelf is removed, land ice can flow more easily into the sea. Because the Larsen C ice shelf and the iceberg it’s about to shed are already floating, the calving event will not add to sea level rise. However, if the remaining ice shelf collapses or starts losing mass more rapidly, it could effectively unplug the glaciers next to the shelf, sending land-based ice into Southern Ocean, and contributing to sea level rise.
EDIT
http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/how-big-is-the-antarctic-iceberg
