Antarctic 'Megaberg' Released 152 Billion Tons of Freshwater Just Before Melting - ScienceAlert

Satellite monitoring systems indicate that for three months at the end of its lifetime, up to March 2021, the iceberg released an astonishing 152 billion tons of freshwater around the remote island of South Georgia – that's the equivalent of 61 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.

There are worries about how this sudden injection of freshwater and the nutrients flowing off the iceberg could affect marine habitats around the island in terms of both ocean circulation and the biological food chain.

"This is a huge amount of meltwater, and the next thing we want to learn is whether it had a positive or negative impact on the ecosystem around South Georgia," says Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, a glaciologist from the University of Leeds in the UK and the study's lead author.

"Frequent measurements allowed us to follow every move and break-up of the berg as it moved slowly northwards through iceberg alley and into the Scotia Sea where it then gained speed and approached the island of South Georgia very closely."