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The breakup of Iceberg A68a

By Scott Bachmeier •

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

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

A sequence of GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images covering the 14 December – 26 December 2020 period (above) showed that after Iceberg A68a encountered the more shallow continental shelf waters southwest of South Georgia island earlier in the month (NOAA-20 True Color RGB images, 02-13 December), the large iceberg then began to move south-southeastward, shear apart and release 3 smaller orphan icebergs (in addition to widespread small ice floes).

A toggle between NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color RGB images on 23 December and 25 December viewed using RealEarth (below) provided a higher-resolution view of the numerous small ice floes that resulted from the iceberg fracturing process.

NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color RGB images [click to enlarge]

NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color RGB images [click to enlarge]

Categories: GOES-16, NOAA-20, RealEarth, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, VIIRS