Iceberg size and shape

For many years, the largest reliably measured Antarctic iceberg was the one first observed off Clarence Island (one of the South Shetland Islands) by the whale catcher Odd I in 1927; it was 180 km (110 miles) long, was approximately square, and possessed a freeboard of 30–40 metres (100–130 feet). In 1956 an iceberg was sighted by USS Glacier off Scott Island (a small island about 500 km [300 miles] northeast of Victoria Land in the Ross Sea) with unconfirmed length of 335 km (210 miles) and width of 100 km (60 miles). However, recently there have been many calvings of giant icebergs in the Ross and Weddell seas with dimensions that have been measured accurately by satellite. In 2000 iceberg B-15 broke off the Ross Ice Shelf with an initial length of 295 km (about 185 miles). Although B-15 broke into two fragments after a few days, B-15A—the larger portion, measuring 120 km (75 miles) long by 20 km (12 miles) wide—obstructed the entrance to McMurdo Sound and prevented the pack ice in the sound from clearing out in the summer. In October 2005 B-15A broke up into several large pieces off Cape Adare in Victoria Land because of the impact of distant swell. Iceberg C-19 was an even larger but narrow iceberg that broke off the Ross Ice Shelf in May 2002. It fragmented before it could drift far.

The Antarctic Peninsula has been warming significantly in recent decades (by 2.5 °C [4.5 °F] since the 1950s). Three ice shelves on the peninsula, the Wordie and Wilkins ice shelves on the west side of the peninsula and the Larsen Ice Shelf on the east side, have been disintegrating. This has caused the release of tremendous numbers of icebergs. The Larsen Ice Shelf has retreated twice since 2000; each event involved the fracture and release of a vast area of shelf ice in the form of multiple gigantic icebergs and innumerable smaller ones. The breakout of 3,250 square km (1,250 square miles) of shelf over 35 days in early 2002 effectively ended the existence of the Larsen B portion of the shelf. Although these events received much attention and were thought to be symptomatic of global warming, the Ross Sea sector does not seem to be warming at present. It is likely that the emission of giant icebergs in this zone was an isolated event. Intense iceberg outbreaks, such as the one described above, may not necessarily be occurring with a greater frequency than in the past. Rather, they are more easily detected with the aid of satellites.

In the typically ice-free Southern Ocean, surveys of iceberg diameters show that most bergs have a typical diameter of 300–500 metres (1,000–1,600 feet), although a few exceed 1 km (0.6 mile). It is possible to calculate the flexural (bending) response of a tabular iceberg to long Southern Ocean swells, and it has been found that a serious storm is capable of breaking down most bergs larger than 1 km into fragments.

Arctic bergs are generally smaller than Antarctic bergs, especially when newly calved. The largest recorded Arctic iceberg (excluding ice islands) was observed off Baffin Island in 1882; it was 13 km (8 miles) long by 6 km (4 miles) wide and possessed a freeboard, or the height of the berg above the waterline, of 20 metres (65 feet). Most Arctic bergs are much smaller and have a typical diameter of 100–300 metres (330–1,000 feet). Owing to their origin in narrow, fast-flowing glaciers, many Arctic bergs calve into random shapes that often develop further as they fracture and capsize. Antarctic bergs also evolve by the erosion of the weak freeboard or via further calving into tilted shapes. Depending on the local shape of the ice shelf at calving, the surfaces of icebergs, even while still predominantly tabular, may be domed or concave.