A massive iceberg, the size of the Spanish island of Majorca, caved off the coast of Antarctica, the European Space Agency said.
Iceberg A-76 calved from the western side of the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica and is now floating on the Weddell Sea.
It measures around 170 kilometers (105 miles) in length and is 25 kilometers (15 miles) wide. That’s larger than New York’s Long Island and half the size of Puerto Rico, media reports said.
The Antarctica ice sheet is warming faster than the rest of the planet, causing melting of snow and ice covers as well as the retreat of glaciers, especially around the Weddell Sea.
As glaciers retreat, chunks of ice break off and float adrift until they break apart or crash into land, the reports pointed out.
The warming of Antarctica is deemed to have caused the increase in icebergs calving off retreating glaciers, which in turn causes a rise in sea levels.
