page_title: Iceberg
section_title: Modern monitoring
hierarchical_section_title: Iceberg / Monitoring / Modern monitoring
caption_attribution_description: English: This astronaut photograph illustrates the remains of a giant iceberg—designated A22A— that broke off Antarctica in 2002. The iceberg was photographed at a location of 49.9 degrees south latitude, 23.8 degrees west longitude, which is about a third of the distance from South America towards Cape Town, South Africa. A22A is one of the largest icebergs to drift as far north as 50 degrees south latitude, bringing it beneath the daylight path of the International Space Station (ISS). Crew members aboard the ISS were able to locate the ice mass and photograph it, despite the great masses of clouds that often accompany winter storms in the Southern Ocean. The crew’s viewing angle was oblique (not looking straight down) from a point to the west of the berg, and the time of day was early afternoon, as shown by the orientation of the cloud shadows. Dimensions of A22A in early June were 49.9 by 23.4 kilometres, giving it an area of 622 square kilometres, or seven times the area of Manhattan Island. ISS Crew Earth Observations: ISS015-E-10125 Identification Mission ISS015 (Expedition 15) Roll E Frame 10125 Country or Geographic Name ATLANTIC OCEAN Features A22A ICEBERG, SMALL ICEBERGS Center Point Latitude -48.8° N Center Point Longitude -24.0° E Camera Camera Tilt 43° Camera Focal Length 180&#160;mm Camera Kodak DCS760C Electronic Still Camera Film 3060 x 2036 pixel CCD, RGBG array. Quality Percentage of Cloud Cover 26-50% Nadir What is Nadir? Date 2007-05-30 Time 14:46:44 Nadir Point Latitude -50.5° N Nadir Point Longitude -21.8° E Nadir to Photo Center Direction Northwest Sun Azimuth 340° Spacecraft Altitude 181 nautical miles (335&#160;km) Sun Elevation Angle 16° Orbit Number 799
context_page_description: An iceberg is a large piece of freshwater ice that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open water. Small bits of disintegrating icebergs are called "growlers" or "bergy bits".
  Much of an iceberg is below the surface which led to the expression "tip of the iceberg" to illustrate a small part of a larger unseen issue. Icebergs are considered a serious maritime hazard. The 1912 loss of the RMS Titanic led to the formation of the International Ice Patrol in 1914.
  Icebergs calved by glaciers that face the open sea, such as in Greenland, are irregular shaped piles. In Antarctica, ice shelves calve large tabular icebergs. The biggest iceberg ever recorded was Iceberg B-15A which split off the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 2000.
context_section_description: Icebergs are monitored worldwide by the U.S. National Ice Center (NIC), established in 1995, which produces analyses and forecasts of Arctic, Antarctic, Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay ice conditions. More than 95% of the data used in its sea ice analyses are derived from the remote sensors on polar-orbiting satellites that survey these remote regions of the Earth.
  The NIC is the only organization that names and tracks all Antarctic Icebergs. It assigns each iceberg larger than 10 nautical miles (19 km) along at least one axis a name composed of a letter indicating its point of origin and a running number. The letters used are as follows:
  A – longitude 0° to 90° W (Bellingshausen Sea, Weddell Sea)
  B – longitude 90° W to 180° (Amundsen Sea, Eastern Ross Sea)
  C – longitude 90° E to 180° (Western Ross Sea, Wilkes Land)
  D – longitude 0° to 90° E (Amery Ice Shelf, Eastern Weddell Sea)
  Iceberg B15 calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000 and initially had an area of 11,000 square kilometres (4,200 sq mi). It broke apart in November 2002. The largest remaining piece of it, Iceberg B-15A, with an area of 3,000 square kilometres (1,200 sq mi), was still the largest iceberg on Earth until it ran aground and split into several pieces October 27, 2005, an event that was observed by seismographs both on the iceberg and across Antarctica. It has been hypothesized that this breakup may also have been abetted by ocean swell generated by an Alaskan storm 6 days earlier and 13,500 kilometres (8,400 mi) away.
caption: Iceberg A22A in the South Atlantic Ocean
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