15 Months Ago, a Melting Iceberg Released 152 Billion Tonnes of Water

Space.com reports:
A rogue iceberg that drifted dangerously close to an Antarctic penguin population in 2020 and 2021 released billions of tons of fresh water into the ocean during its breakup.

A new study, based on satellite data, tracks the aftermath of the once-mighty iceberg A-68a, which held the title of world's largest iceberg for more than three years before shattering into a dozen pieces.... [T]he new research shows that the iceberg flooded the region with fresh water, potentially affecting the local ecosystem and providing yet another example of the effects of global warming on the oceans.

The research consulted data gathered by missions including Sentinel-1 (operated by European Space Agency, or ESA), Sentinel-3 (ESA), CryoSat-2 (ESA) and ICESat-2 (NASA), as well as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instrument that flies aboard two NASA satellites, Aqua and Terra. The satellite data shows that during the iceberg's three-month melting period in late 2020 and early 2021, the former A-68a flushed into the ocean about 162 billion tons (152 billion metric tonnes) of fresh water — equivalent to 61 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to a press release from United Kingdom study participant University of Leeds.

'Our ability to study every move of the iceberg in such detail is thanks to advances in satellite techniques and the use of a variety of measurements,' said Tommaso Parrinello, CryoSat Mission Manager at the European Space Agency, in the press release.
The BBC reports that the 'monster' iceberg 'was dumping more than 1.5 billion tonnes of fresh water into the ocean every single day at the height of its melting.'

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