Latest Iceberg Stories

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online A new study found that fast-flowing and narrow glaciers could trigger massive changes in the Antarctic ice sheet, inevitably adding sea-level rise and ice-sheet decay. The team tested high-resolution model simulations against reconstructions of the Antarctic ice sheet from 20,000 years ago. Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they said they used a new model during their study, capable of...

This weekend marks a century since the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg while crossing the North Atlantic, taking 1,500 lives down to the bottom of the sea with it. Now, technology has paved the way for disasters like Titanic to be avoided, such as the International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea and the International Ice Patrol (IIP). The IIP monitors icebergs and establishes an iceberg danger area based on observations that are being fed into drift and melt models. The Ice...

Even centuries after the “unsinkable” ship fell to the bottom of the ocean, scientists, researchers, and historians continue to study what caused the ship’s demise. Among these researchers is Richard Corfield, a science writer who decided to take a look into the mathematics and physics of the sinking of the Titanic. To unravel this mystery and others, Corfield took a thorough look into the events and settings of April 14, 1912 and has concluded "no one thing conspired to send Titanic...

[ Watch the Video ] A new study examining nearly 40 years of satellite imagery has revealed that the floating ice shelves of a critical portion of West Antarctica are steadily losing their grip on adjacent bay walls, potentially amplifying an already accelerating loss of ice to the sea. The most extensive record yet of the evolution of the floating ice shelves in the eastern Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica shows that their margins, where they grip onto rocky bay walls or...

A team of astronomers from Texas State University is claiming the moon was an accomplice in bringing down the Titanic. Texas State researcher Donald Olson said the moon may help explain why the icebergs initially got into the path of the Titanic. “Of course, the ultimate cause of the accident was that the ship struck an iceberg. The Titanic failed to slow down, even after having received several wireless messages warning of ice ahead,” Olson said recently. The researchers found...

[ Watch the Video ] In October 2011, researchers flying in NASA’s Operation IceBridge campaign made the first-ever detailed, airborne measurements of a major iceberg calving event while it was in progress. Four months later, the IceBridge team has mapped the crack in Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier in a way that allows glaciologists and the rest of us to fly through the icy canyon. The above image is a still frame captured from a three-dimensional, virtual flight through the new...

[ Watch the Video ] Breathtaking images taken from outer-space by NASA's Operation IceBridge -- the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown -- reveal a 19-mile long, 195 ft.-deep crack across a floating ice shelf in Antarctica that could produce the world’s largest iceberg. The rift was first discovered last October, but IceBridge scientists returned soon after to obtain the first-ever detailed airborne measurements of the 310 square mile iceberg calving in progress....

[ Watch the Video ] After discovering an emerging crack that cuts across the floating ice shelf of Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica, NASA's Operation IceBridge has flown a follow-up mission and made the first-ever detailed airborne measurements of a major iceberg calving in progress. NASA's Operation Ice Bridge, the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown, is in the midst of its third field campaign from Punta Arenas, Chile. The six-year mission will yield an...

A NASA scientist and her colleagues were able to observe for the first time the power of an earthquake and tsunami to break off large icebergs a hemisphere away.Kelly Brunt, a cryosphere specialist at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and colleagues were able to link the calving of icebergs from the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Antarctica following the Tohoku Tsunami, which originated with an earthquake off the coast of Japan in March 2011. The finding, detailed in a paper published...

A plan to tow massive icebergs from the polar ice caps to countries suffering from severe drought conditions, first suggested and dismissed four decades ago, could actually be a feasible way to bring water to those who need it most, according to various media reports.French entrepreneur and environmentalist Georges Mougin, now 86, first came up with the suggestion 40 years ago, according to NewsCore reports."Under the plan, engineers would encircle an iceberg with a harness that contains a...