March 8, 2010 (Pen Men At Work): Topical information on gigantic icebergs, which are of the size of diminutive U.S. states, separating Antarctica, may sound dire. But these developments typically symbolize business as usual at the world’s southernmost continent, scientists claim.

A considerable iceberg, the extent of which is as much as the American state of Rhode Island, collided with Antarctica’s Mertz Glacier in middle of the month of February this year. It manufactured a colossal new iceberg with a probable mass of 860 billion metric tons to snap off the glacial tongue. Scientists have noted down that such astonishing examples have not been infrequent over the past 10-15 years.

Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo, has divulged calmly that the event in the Mertz area, and indeed most of the iceberg calving in Antarctica is an utterly standard and expected movement for an unwavering ice sheet. Scambos and other respected glaciologists have explained the Mertz glacial tongue iceberg as not earth-shattering but, nonetheless, vast. They have unswervingly pointed to a ‘monstrous berg’ that separated from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000, called B-15. The 170 x 25 mile iceberg temporarily rivaled the size of New York State’s Long Island, or about the enormity of Connecticut.

The ice-loss events do have a say in the heightening of the sea level, although, on the whole, input from the Antarctic Peninsula is small. Investigators remain alarmed about the potential association between the loss of ice shelves and the acceleration of glaciers, because it corresponds to a key insecurity regarding how much of the Antarctic ice sheet might play a role in the future with respect to sea level rise and how it might contribute to Antarctica ultimately falling apart!