A68a Update

By Tim Schmit • 2 December 2020

A very large iceberg broke off the Larsen-C Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula in July 2017 (recall this CIMSS Satellite Blog post, or this more recent post). While NOAA’s GOES-16 ABI visible sensors may not be ideal, they can monitor the iceberg’s location if the cloud cover is not too thick, as shown in the “natural color” animation. A similar loop, in the animated gif format. These composite images include information from ABI “blue” and “red” visible bands, along with the near-infrared “vegetation” band. A sample still image from November 21, 2020. More information can be found in the quick guide.

Since it was relatively cloud-free for several hours on 02 December, an animation of GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images is shown below — note the presence of numerous small ice floes that had separated from the edges of A68a, and were circulating within the various ocean currents surrounding the large iceberg as it continued its slow drift toward South Georgia island. 

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images from 02 December 2020 [click to play animation | MP4]

The geo2grid software was used to generate the images for these animations.

Thanks to a recent tweet by Simon Proud, showing a GOES-16 animation of A68a:

Categories: Antarctic, GOES-16, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images