Icebergs can also be huge. Some icebergs near Antarctica can be as big as Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. As little as one-eighth of an iceberg is visible above the water. Most of the mass of an iceberg lies below the surface of the water. This is where the phrase "tip of the iceberg" came from, meaning only part of an idea or problem is known.
There are many different kinds of icebergs. Brash ice , for instance, is a collection of floating ice and icebergs no more than 2 meters 6. A tabular berg is a flat-topped iceberg that usually forms as ice breaks directly off an ice sheet or ice shelf. The ice below the water is dangerous to ships. The sharp, hidden ice can easily tear a hole in the bottom of a ship.
A particularly treacherous part of the North Atlantic has come to be known as Iceberg Alley because of the high number of icebergs that find their way there. Iceberg Alley is located miles east and southeast of Newfoundland, Canada.
In , the Titanic , a large British ocean liner on its way to New York, struck an iceberg and sank in Iceberg Alley. More than 1, people drowned. Soon after the Titanic sank, an International Ice Patrol was established to track icebergs and warn ships.
That patrol continues today. Iceberg patrols now use global positioning system GPS technology to help locate icebergs and prevent more tragedies like the Titanic. It was found drifting toward the Drake Passage, an important shipping route south of Argentina. David Long of NASA's SeaWinds science team used satellite data to track the iceberg, the first time satellite technology was used for that purpose.
Since that time, the SeaWinds team has used satellites to track the world's ice. Icebergs that drift into warmer waters eventually melt. Scientists estimate the lifespan of an iceberg, from first snowfall on a glacier to final melting in the ocean, to be as long as 3, years. Photograph by Dennis Lowe , My Shot. Why So Blue? Some glaciers and icebergs are blue, for the same reason water is blue.
The chemical bond between oxygen and hydrogen in water absorbs light in the red end of the visible light spectrum. Blue glaciers and icebergs are not blue for the same reason the sky is blue. The sky is blue due to atmospheric scattering of light Raleigh scattering , a different phenomenon.
The former denotes an iceberg with a flat top and very sheer edges, as well as a length to height ratio greater than Tremendous Tabular Icebergs in Antarctic Sound up close. Photo credit: shutterstock.
Depending on how the sun shines on them, icebergs refract mesmerising hues of white, blue and green. This is because the compacted snow which collated to form the iceberg was interspersed with air bubbles, dust and algae. The colour of an iceberg is also often used to determine its age: younger icebergs tend to refract more green from living algae while older ones appear more blue due to the ice becoming denser over time and absorbing all colours except blue.
Crystal blue piece glacier floating in Antarctica. Photo Credit: shutterstock. The fact that the greater part of an iceberg lies below the surface of the water is arguably the most known fact of all.
Underwater view of iceberg with beautiful transparent sea on background. Due to the fact that the great majority of any iceberg is found underwater, sea currents play a much greater role in their travel-speed than wind currents.
The sinking of the Titanic turned the focus on these immense chunks of ice and led to the formation of the International Ice Patrol, whose sole job has been to keep an eye on iceberg formations and travels off the coast of North America and the Arctic Region.
Huge icebergs in Antarctica with the dark sky in the background. It boasted a surface area of 11, square kilometres, measuring km in length and 37km in width. In comparison, the A iceberg that broke off the Brunt Ice Shelf in February earlier this year, was only sq km. The Sentinel-1 mission consists of two polar-orbiting satellites that rely on C-band synthetic aperture radar imaging, returning data regardless of whether it is day or night, allowing us year-round viewing of remote regions like Antarctica.
Icebergs are traditionally named from the Antarctic quadrant in which they were originally sighted, then a sequential number, then, if the iceberg breaks, a sequential letter.
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