Images & Animations
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Credit
Seawinds Instrument Team, NASA JPL
A NASA satellite instrument is keeping an eye on an iceberg the size of Rhode Island, the first time this space technology has been used to track a potential threat to international shipping.
NASA's new orbiting SeaWinds radar instrument, flying aboard the QuikScat satellite, will monitor Iceberg B10A, which snapped off Antarctica seven years ago and has since drifted into a shipping lane.
Iceberg B10A, which measures about 38 by 77 kilometers (about 24 miles by 48 miles), was spotted by the Instrument during its first pass over Antarctica, demonstrating SeaWinds' all-weather and day-night observational capabilities. The massive iceberg extends about 90 meters (300 feet) above water and may reach as deep as 300 meters (1,000 feet) below the ocean's surface. It is breaking up into smaller pieces that could pose a threat to commercial, cruise and fishing ships if the pieces are blown back into the shipping lane by high winds.
B10A, which took hundreds of thousands of years to form, broke off the end of the Thwaites glacier of Antarctica in 1992 and has been drifting in the ocean ever since, driven by ocean currents and wind. In 1995, the iceberg broke in half, but was being tracked on a regular basis. Although conventional methods of tracking sea-surface ice -- using ships' radar, shipping reports, optical images from satellites and microwave sensor data -- are usually sufficient for tracking large pieces of ice, icebergs can sometimes disappear in the poor visibility of dark, cloudy Antarctic winters.
Scientists were surprised at its location when they found B10A, but it was clearly identified as a very large iceberg that posed a considerable threat to ships in the area. A check with the Naval Ice Center confirmed the iceberg's identity and has enabled scientists to continue tracking its journey through the Drake Passage. When it was rediscovered earlier this month heading northeast between Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America and the Antarctic Peninsula, the National Ice Center issued an iceberg navigation warning to the Argentine government.
More information about the SeaWinds mission and observations is available at the following URL:
http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsindex.html
Metadata
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Sensor
QuikSCAT/SeaWinds -
Visualization Date
1999-09-08
