Antarctica - Iceberg A68 - Carved from the Larsen C Ice Shelf
The Antarctic is Melting too - This break-away iceberg A68 is so large, and now with others, that maps have had to be re-drawn
Sculptural Watercolour® 2020 in a box frame 60 x 80 x 7 cm
Iceberg A-68 'calved' (broke away) from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf in 2017, it was so immense: said to be the largest ever, that it became a media star. Its area was a whapping 6,000 sq km or 2,300 sq miles: the size of a small country. For a year, it hardly moved at all but in 2018 it begen drifting north through the Weddell Sea, rotating several times. In 2019 it entrered the South Atlantic Ocean where it became caught in what is known as the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that took it on an especially worrying course heading direct for the island of South Georgia. It was thought that it could get lodged on the seabed and seriously disrupt the island's wildlife. Prue Bishop decided to record this historic event with two Sculptural Watercolour paintings, both of which have been greatly admired ever since, above all for their extraordinary portrayal of the ice. By the end of 2020 it was less than 50 kilometres / 30 miles away from the island, and scientists were concerned that this huge body of ice, some 150m / 500ft deep could become stranded by contact with the seabed, leading to a large volume of fresh water entering the sea; seriously upsetting the island's wild life. |
In the event, the huge berg broke up, passing the island without incident in 2021. But by then, five other even larger icebergs had 'calved' and the route become known as 'iceberg alley' Calving of icebergs from the 10,000 year old Ice Shelves are a natural phenomena that's becoming more common due to increasing average temperatures across the Antarctic Continent. The reduction in the huge areas of floating ice shelves such as Larsen C will allow the flow of the feeder glaciers to speed up, transferring an increasing amount of ice from land to sea, contributing to Rising Sea Levels. In addition, having both planetary poles melting at the same time will change ocean currents and the climate, in some places dramatically. |
Detail from the above Sculptural Watercolour®
Detail of the right-hand side of the painting.
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