Iceberg description. Research work on the topic: “Amazing natural phenomena

11. Ice in the ocean.

Ice is the solid phase of water, one of its aggregate states. Pure fresh water freezes at a temperature almost equal to zero (below zero by only 0.01-0.02 ° C). At the same time, water that has been purified in laboratory conditions to the maximum possible extent and is in a calm state can be cooled without forming ice to a temperature of minus 33°C. But the smallest piece of ice or other tiny object placed in such supercooled water will instantly cause rapid ice formation.

Normal ocean water, with a salinity of 35‰, freezes at minus 1.91°C. At a salinity of 25 ‰ (White Sea) water freezes at a temperature of minus 1.42°C, at a salinity of 20 ‰ (Black Sea) - at minus 1.07°C, and in the Sea of Azov (salinity 10 ‰) surface water freezes at a temperature minus 0.53°C.

Freezing fresh water does not change its composition. The situation is different when it freezes. sea water. Freezing begins with the formation of thin, elongated ice crystals, which contain absolutely no salt. Gradually, when the lumps of these crystals begin to freeze, salt gets into the ice.

The salinity of sea ice, i.e. the salinity of the water formed during its melting averages about 10% salinity ocean water. Over time, this figure decreases, and multi-year ice can be almost fresh.

The volume of ice is 9 percent greater than the volume of water from which it was formed, because... V crystal lattice Ice packing of water molecules is ordered and becomes less dense. Therefore, the density of sea ice is less than the density of sea water and ranges from 0.85-0.94 g/cm 3 . That's why floating ice rise above the surface of the water by 1/7 - 1/10 of their thickness.

Strength sea ice noticeably lower than freshwater, but it increases with decreasing temperature and salinity of ice. Have the greatest strength multi-year ice.

Ice 60 cm thick, which forms on freshwater bodies in the depths of winter, can withstand a load of up to 15-18 tons, if, of course, this load is not applied concentratedly, but in the form of, say, a cargo platform on a caterpillar track, the supporting surface of which is approximately 2 .5 m2.

At this point we will make a small digression, but not at all lyrical. Lake Ladoga, as is known, has only a weak connection with the oceans and ocean ice. But we want to remind you that in 1941-1942 the ice “Road of Life” was laid along this lake, which saved the lives of many tens of thousands of people. Our young readers should definitely familiarize themselves with the heroic and dramatic history of the construction and operation of this legendary road of life.

In the oceans, ice forms in high and temperate latitudes. In the polar regions, ice remains for several years. These perennial, so-called pack ice reaches its greatest thickness in central regions Arctic Ocean - up to 5 meters. Sea ice begins to melt when its temperature exceeds minus 23°C. In the Arctic in summer, the thickness of ice due to the melting of its upper layers can decrease by 0.5-1.0 meters, but over the winter up to 3 meters of ice can freeze below. This multi-year ice is gradually carried by currents to temperate latitudes, where it melts relatively quickly. It is believed that the lifespan of Arctic ice that forms off the coast of Russia ranges from 2 to 9 years, and Antarctic ice lasts even longer. Largest sizes ice cover in the oceans reaches at the end of winter: in the Arctic it covers an area of about 11 million km 2 by April, and about 20 million km 2 in the Antarctic by September. If we talk about permanent ice cover , then it makes up 3-4 percent of the total area of the World Ocean.

Ice cover may consist not only of fast ice, i.e. motionless ice frozen to the shore, but also moving drifting ice With a strong wind coinciding in direction with the sea current, drifting ice can travel a distance of up to 100 km per day.

Falling snow often creates large drifts on the ice. The snow gradually freezes, increasing the thickness of the ice cover. Sometimes hurricane-force winds break the ice, creating high hummocks. On such ice, if we talk about the Arctic, only polar bear, and even then with great difficulty.

But the ocean also contains ice that formed on land. These are the so-called icebergs - huge blocks fresh ice (German Eisberg - ice mountain). Icebergs are delivered to the ocean by continental glaciers at polar latitudes. The largest ice sheet on Earth is located in Antarctica. Its area is 13.98 million km 2, i.e. 1.5 times more area Australia. At the same time, the area of the continent of Antarctica itself is estimated at 12.09 million km 2. the rest is accounted for by the ice that covers almost the entire shelf of Antarctica. Average thickness Antarctic ice is 2.2 km, and the largest is 4.7 km. The volume of ice is estimated at 26 million cubic kilometers. The enormous weight of ice pressed this continent into earth's crust. As a result, much of Antarctica's surface lies below sea level. The Antarctic glacier annually receives 2000-2200 km 3 of ice from snow and loses about the same amount to icebergs. Of course, this balance cannot be accurately calculated. Therefore, the scientific world does not yet have a clear answer to the question of whether the Antarctic glacier is increasing or decreasing.

Icebergs in the form of huge blocks, similar to mountains, slowly slide from the mainland into the sea, and then crash into the water with a roar. In Antarctica, the largest volume of ice in the form of icebergs is provided by two giant ice shelves advancing into the Ross and Weddell Seas. For example, the Ross Ice Shelf has an area exceeding 500 thousand km 2, and the ice thickness here reaches 700 meters. In the Ross Sea, this glacier approaches in the form of a huge ice barrier almost 900 km long and up to 50 meters high.

There are about 100 thousand icebergs constantly floating around Antarctica. Comprehensive monitoring, including monitoring of icebergs, is carried out by 35 people working here scientific stations from different countries. Russia has 8 scientific stations here, the USA - 3, Great Britain - 2. Ukraine, Poland, Argentina and other countries also have Antarctic scientific stations.

The international legal regime of Antarctica and other territories located south of 60° S is regulated by the Antarctic Treaty of December 1, 1959.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the main supplier of icebergs to the ocean is Greenland. It is believed that up to 15 thousand huge pieces of ice break off from the glaciers of this island every year. From here they sail into one of the busiest areas of the Atlantic Ocean.

Icebergs also break off from the glaciers of the islands of the Arctic Ocean - Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya, Spitsbergen and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

In general, glaciers occupy 16.1 million km 2 of land, of which 14.4 million km 2 are covered by ice sheets (85.3% in Antarctica, 12.1% in Greenland). In terms of area and volume of water, glaciers occupy second place on Earth after the World Ocean, and in terms of fresh water content they surpass all rivers, lakes and groundwater, taken together.

Icebergs are table-shaped and pyramidal in shape. The table-shaped shape is characteristic of Antarctic icebergs, which are formed when they are separated from a huge mass of ice of a homogeneous structure. When glaciers move relatively quickly, the shape of the broken pieces often resembles a pyramid. As the underwater and surface parts melt unevenly, icebergs take on various, most bizarre shapes, and with loss of stability they can capsize.

Icebergs can reach enormous sizes. Especially large icebergs form from the ice shelves of Antarctica. In 1987, with the help of Earth satellites, an iceberg 153 km long and 36 km wide was discovered in the Ross Sea area.

An iceberg called B-15 broke off from the same glacier in 2000. This giant had an area of more than 11,000 km 2. If an ice floe of this area were on Lake Ladoga, then it would cover 63% of the surface of this large (17.7 thousand km 2) lake.

The mass of such giants can amount to hundreds of millions and even billions of tons. But this is clean fresh water, the shortage of which has long been felt by many countries.

The heat capacity of ice melting is very high. It takes 80 calories to melt 1 gram of ice, not including the heat it takes to warm the ice to zero degrees. It is no coincidence that projects for towing icebergs to the shores of such coastal states as Japan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates have long arisen. Calculations show that the iceberg is of “medium” size: 1 km long, 600 m wide and a total height of 300 m during the towing journey, for example, from Antarctica to Saudi Arabia will lose no more than 20% of its volume. The initial weight of such an iceberg would be about 180 million tons (in water it is much less). If towing an iceberg of this size remains a technically difficult task, then the delivery of relatively small ice fragments with a volume of 200-300 thousand cubic meters is quite doable and is already carried out from time to time by the countries mentioned above.

Having broken off from glaciers, icebergs, picked up by currents and driven by winds, sometimes float far beyond the polar regions. Antarctic icebergs reach the southern coast of Australia, South America and even Africa. Icebergs from Greenland penetrate into the North Atlantic up to forty degrees north latitude, i.e. latitudes of New York, and sometimes further south, reaching the Azores and even Bermuda.

The cruising range of icebergs and the time of their existence in the ocean depend not only on the direction and speed of sea currents, but also on the physical properties of the icebergs themselves. Very large and deeply frozen (down to minus 60 degrees) Antarctic icebergs exist for several years, and in some cases even decades.

Greenland icebergs melt much faster, in just 2-3 years, because... they are not so large in size and their freezing temperature is no more than minus 30 degrees.

It is unnecessary to explain what danger floating ice mountains pose for shipping. More than once collisions with icebergs have led to disasters at sea. But none of these disasters can compare with the tragedy that took place at the beginning of the 20th century in the North Atlantic.

Nowadays, the danger of colliding with icebergs has decreased significantly compared to the times of the Titanic. Quite reliable radar and other equipment for tracking, alerting and warning about the danger of encountering icebergs is installed on sea vessels, in ports, and on artificial earth satellites. In the North Atlantic, where there are busy shipping routes, a special ice patrol . It warns ship captains about the locations of large icebergs. The International Ice Patrol includes 16 countries. His ships detect icebergs, warn about the location of icebergs and the direction of their movement. The functions of the ice patrol also include the fight against icebergs, which is carried out with the help of explosions, the use of incendiary bombs, dark coloring of ice blocks, for example, by applying a layer of soot to the surface of the iceberg to speed up the melting process, etc.

However, the measures taken cannot be exhaustive. Icebergs appear in the ocean according to the laws of nature. No one can completely guarantee sea vessels against ice hazards. The ocean is large and often fraught with dangers, for which it is always necessary to prepare in advance.

Protect yourself and your business
Book >> Management
... iceberg. ... Education". Contains full information about education ... perspective; * plans for the long term perspective ... dangers and the environment in which danger ... distribution information that is trying use ... methods protection confidential...
Shadow economy: phenomenon, macroeconomic consequences and methods struggle
Coursework >> Economics
Gigantic iceberg, define... special danger For... protection, necessary use... , widely widespread unauthorized additional...economy and education powerful... using several methods, with... designed for perspective. In the short term...
Protection water resources
Abstract >> Ecology
... icebergs and the permafrost zone. Of the total amount of fresh water, only about 1% used... is the most common substance in... education Lakes... calculated perspective at... , protection, preservation... improvement methods control... danger represent...
Methods HR management (18)
Abstract >> Management
Especially dangerous types... education, science, culture, healthcare; -pricing policy states in the field of “consumer basket” goods; - protection... parts iceberg. ...this used method analysis... perspective ... widespread method certification is method ...
Basics of public relations
Abstract >> Marketing
Huge iceberg science... exists danger distribution information... methods mathematics and computer equipment. The most common methods ... protection... wider prospects. * ... education, a set of photographs of the candidate with children is being prepared. Use ...

Last December, photographer Alex Cornell, during his expedition to Antarctica, was lucky enough to photograph an amazing iceberg of an unusual blue color. It turned out that the iceberg turned over and the part of the iceberg that is usually under water became visible. Very beautiful color, I have never seen anything like it before.

Video of how icebergs can turn:

Simply beautiful

After these photos, Osya and I talked a lot about icebergs, and here are different interesting facts things you can tell your children:

1. How are icebergs formed?

They break off from large shelf (i.e., floating or bottom-supported) glaciers.

You can launch a small boat and several frozen ice floes in colored water with foam. And conduct a study - what exactly is floating in front of the ship - just a giant ice floe or a real iceberg?

- In plastic molds (for example, from ice cream) you can freeze flat pieces of ice, if you do not pour a lot of water into them.
- Uneven ice will result if you freeze water in wrinkled plastic cups. It’s just better not to wrinkle them too much, otherwise they will crack.
- You can separately freeze water in special forms for ice, and then these ice pieces will easily stick to each other and you can make different “icebergs”.

We checked whether the iceberg really does not sink, and how much it sinks into the water.

2. Types of icebergs. Icebergs are table-shaped, dome-shaped and pyramidal. An iceberg with a flat surface can easily be mistaken for an island. And it’s comfortable to live on if you’re a penguin.

There are also “dry dock” icebergs - the middle of such an iceberg lies below the surface of the water.

We tried to make icebergs different shapes, it turns out very funny. The best iceberg is made from ice in a salad bowl.
At the same time, we discussed the bottom of the iceberg. Scientists know of cases where icebergs drifted against the current. And Osya spent a long time guessing how this could be? The whole point is that only a third or fourth of the entire iceberg rises above the surface, while the rest is submerged in water, and there is so much of it that it is “controlled” by active underwater currents.

3. The largest iceberg:
In 2000, the largest known iceberg in history (B-15), measuring 295 km in length and 37 km, broke off the Ross Ice Shelf. This is very difficult to imagine, it seems to me.

4. It's interesting what these ice giants can do travel great distances. For example, icebergs from the Arctic float almost to Bermuda, located 4,000 km from their place of formation. But Antarctic icebergs can be seen in the area of the Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro. And this is more than 5,000 km from the coast of Antarctica!

5. Floating so far icebergs can be very dangerous for shipping. Everyone knows tragic fate the English passenger liner Titanic, which collided with a huge iceberg on April 14, 1912, and as a result sank. Soon after, the International Ice Patrol was created to monitor the movement of icebergs and warn ships of possible danger. And since the beginning of the work of the ice patrol in the North Atlantic, not a single person has died from collisions with icebergs.

It is very interesting that it turns out that there is an iceberg tugboat. The Atlantic Eagle is battling large icebergs in the ocean.

Its only task is to move the iceberg a few degrees from the undesirable course. When a tugboat approaches an iceberg, its crew uses radar to obtain an image of the underwater part of the iceberg. Then the tug goes around it, bending around the ice floe and unwinding hundreds of meters of powerful cable. Having made a loop, both ends are secured to the boat with huge staples. Then, increasing the power of the vessel, they move the iceberg from its place. All this can be very dangerous, because if the iceberg suddenly decides to capsize, it will cause huge wave or it will crack, which could lead to the sinking of the ship.

6. Iceberg color

Young icebergs white, they consist of ice and air bubbles. These air bubbles form in the glacier from which the iceberg breaks off. When snow is compressed and turns into ice grains, some of the air is also “pressed” into the ice and can occupy up to 15% of the iceberg’s volume. When a glacier moves, cracks form in it. They are filled with water, which, unlike snow, freezes without bubbles. Then blue streaks appear in the iceberg: this is ice free of air.
This is how striped icebergs appear.

They write that in this iceberg, while drifting, sea water and algae got into the cracks and froze:

There are also “black” icebergs: they form when a glacier begins to move and “removes” layers from the surface rock or soil, which later forms a black color in its thickness. And the black color in icebergs may be a remnant of the volcanic dust that covers their mother glaciers.

Who wants to fly over Iceland (Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon. 360° aerial panorama) click on the link above. And then we’ll look at photos of beautiful icebergs and learn something interesting about them.

“The ship was sailing 270 meters from the ice shelf, when a huge block weighing about a million tons broke off from its edge with a loud crack. The main mass of the broken ice mountain either rose high out of the water, then dived again, disappearing from sight. This was repeated many times, and from Pieces of it were breaking off all the time, and it became smaller and smaller. When the roar died down, among the numerous white fragments there remained a beautiful blue mountain, like the core of a flower among the sleeping petals." The famous Australian polar explorer, conqueror of the South, describes the picture of the birth of an iceberg so poetically and at the same time magnetic pole and the southernmost volcano on Earth - Erebus - Douglas Mawson.

The formidable floating ice mountains are huge masses of ice that have broken off from glaciers sliding into the sea or, as Mawson describes, from the edges of giant ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland The moment the iceberg breaks away is a grandiose and terrible spectacle, accompanied by an eerie roar reminiscent of cannon fire. The entire surface of the sea comes at this time in strong excitement, and the resulting waves are so large that they capsize boats and throw small fishing vessels far away.

ICEBERGS, large blocks of fresh ice that break off from glaciers descending into the sea or a periglacial lake (common ice floes and pack ice are formed when the surface of the sea freezes). The main sources of icebergs are the fiord glaciers of Greenland and the ice shelves of Antarctica. The length of Antarctic icebergs sometimes reaches 80 km. Some icebergs rise above the water surface by more than 60 m. Depending on the shape of the icebergs, their underwater part is 7-9 times larger than the surface part. The direction of iceberg drift depends mainly on ocean currents, so icebergs often move against the wind.

The word “iceberg” is translated into Russian as “ice mountain.” This is no exaggeration, since icebergs really reach enormous sizes. In the ocean there were ice giants tens and even hundreds of kilometers long and hundreds of meters high. Back in 1854-1864, scientists monitored the movement of a giant iceberg for ten years, which had a length of 120 kilometers and a height of 90 meters. And in 1927, a Norwegian whaling ship spotted an ice island reaching a length of 170 kilometers. But the largest iceberg was discovered in Antarctic waters in 1956. Its length was 385 and its width was 111 kilometers. In area it was equal to almost half of a country like Slovenia, or three Luxembourg!

The tallest iceberg was found in 1904 off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. The height of the peak of this ice mountain was 450 meters!

Due to the fact that ice is lighter than water, and also due to the air bubbles found in ice crystals, icebergs have good buoyancy. At the same time, only one-eighth of the ice mountain is visible on the surface of the sea; the rest of its mass is under water. Therefore, icebergs are driven by sea currents rather than air currents, and often float against the wind and even through ice fields up to two meters thick. Woe to a ship frozen in such an ice field - the iceberg will crush it like a matchbox!

Antarctic icebergs rarely move far north in Indian Ocean and the southern part of the Pacific, where the main shipping routes pass, although they were encountered 160 km south of Australia. In the South Atlantic, icebergs drift with the Falkland Current from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope. Northern part Pacific Ocean separated from the Arctic Sea (except for the narrow Bering Strait) and free of icebergs. 10-15 thousand icebergs break off from the West Greenland glaciers every year, many of them coming from East Greenland and the northeastern Arctic coast of Canada. The Labrador Current carries these icebergs south along Newfoundland, and then the Gulf Stream carries them across the Atlantic in a north-northeast direction. From April to August, icebergs are found in abundance on busy North Atlantic shipping lines and all year round can be observed in areas north of 43°N. Sometimes in the south they were found up to the latitude of the Azores.

In clear weather, thanks to their shiny surface, icebergs are visible from afar. At night, breakers form a warning white line around their base. In fog they are poorly distinguishable at a distance of over 90 m, and before the invention of radar they were detected using a ship's siren, the sound of which was reflected from their surface. The sinking of the first-class liner Titanic in 1912 was the result of negligence, and this was the reason for the very strict rules of navigation safety that are still in force today. On the moonless night of April 14-15, the ship continued to move at a speed of 22 knots, despite receiving radio warnings about the presence of floating ice in the area. It hit the iceberg 40 seconds after it was spotted and sank 2 hours 40 minutes later, claiming 1,513 lives.

The “parents” of icebergs are the vast glaciers of Greenland, Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land and the island of Canada. From there, 18 thousand icebergs “start” their voyage every year.

The process of iceberg birth is slow. The glacier area is slowly sliding onto the water, driven by bad weather and washed away by the oncoming waves. Then the broken part of the glacier falls into the water with a roar. Air bubbles located in the iceberg, and also due to the fact that ice is lighter than water, the iceberg has good buoyancy.

The process of iceberg birth is accompanied by very interesting and unlike anything else sounds

On the surface of flat icebergs they are often found big lakes, sometimes up to twenty kilometers in diameter. On such ice islands there are also rivers and streams flowing into the sea beautiful waterfalls. One of these rivers reached a length of four kilometers and a depth of twelve meters.

Sea water washes deep tunnels and caves in icebergs. Sometimes, however, caves are obtained ice mountain“inheritance” from the glacier that gave birth to it. The cracks formed during the movement of ice tongues along the mountain slopes can then close at the top if the glacier goes out onto the plain, and then long subglacial cavities remain inside it, which over time approach the shore and move along with the containing them. ice block on a long voyage.

The interior of these subglacial, or more precisely, “intra-ice” caves is a spectacle of amazing beauty. Here's what one of the participants in the 1965 Soviet Antarctic expedition says about it:

"A rounded corridor about three meters high went deep into the ice mountain. The wavy walls were made of smooth, as if polished ice. An extraordinary bluish-blue light passed through the entire ice massif, flowed softly, shimmering in the ice walls. The reflections of the light that penetrated the ice played on the icicles into the entrance hole. The fantastic blue color of the walls, the play of light, the steam escaping from the mouth in clouds set us in a solemn mood. We involuntarily spoke in a whisper and slowly walked along the corridor... The passages branching in all directions pierced the iceberg, and the most amazing thing about them was. huge ice crystals hanging from the ceiling and completely covering the walls. It was frost, similar to that which can be seen on the windows on a frosty day, but only magnified many times.

Ice needles, like flowers of the most bizarre shapes, sparkled and sparkled in the blue diffused light. It was scary not only to move, but also to breathe among this unusually fragile and indescribable beauty. We lit the matches and they suddenly burst into a bright red flame. Of course, the fire from the lit match seemed so bright in contrast to the bluish lighting of the cave, but this did not make it any less beautiful."

Once our sailors even met a “singing” iceberg off the coast of Antarctica. The water washed through the holes in it, in which the wind staged rather melodic “concerts”, as if playing a huge flute.

Sometimes icebergs resemble the outlines of medieval castles or watchtowers. They are called pyramidal. But flat, so-called table icebergs are more common. Sometimes you come across colored floating islands: black, green or yellow. It is believed that the reason for the unusual color of the icebergs is the volcanic dust covering them.

Interestingly, floating ice mountains can be found not only in the seas and oceans. In the Tien Shan, at the foot of the majestic Khan Tengri peak, there is a glacial lake called Merzbacher. When a scientific expedition first went to the lake in the 1920s, its members were surprised to see, off the coast of Greenland, that large icebergs were floating on the lake, apparently broken off from the Inylchek glacier that formed the lake. One of the expedition scientists described the picture he saw as follows:

“Icebergs, sparkling in the rays of the southern sun, floated in the water. Ice towers and castles, covered with snow and burning in the sun with myriads of snow crystals, translucent grottoes on the surface of icebergs, hanging icicles playing with all the colors of the rainbow - all this created a fabulous impression.”

Icebergs have always posed a serious threat to shipping. Greenland icebergs are especially dangerous in this regard, which are driven south by winds and currents to the shores North America where there are busy shipping routes. Moreover, if in March the ice mountains reach only the island of Newfoundland, after which they melt and disappear, then in October they sometimes reach the latitude of New York, creating a dangerous obstacle on the way of transoceanic liners traveling from Europe to the USA and back.

The danger is aggravated by the fact that in this area the cold Labrador Current meets the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, causing thick and long-lasting fogs. Meanwhile, icebergs up to 20-30 meters high (and these are the majority in the North Atlantic) even on a clear night are visible only from a distance of 500-600 meters, which does not allow the captain, even if he ordered “Full back!”, to avoid a collision with a fatal obstacle .

The greatest maritime disaster of the 20th century forced maritime powers to take measures to avoid similar tragedies in the future. As a result, the International North Atlantic Ice Patrol was created in 1913. Patrol boats and aircraft watch for icebergs and radio warnings for passing ships. Over the course of a year, the patrol identifies up to four hundred dangerous ice mountains, on which special radio beacons are installed or their surface is painted with bright orange paint.

However, even patrolling does not provide a complete guarantee of avoiding collisions. So, already today, in 1959, the Danish ship Hans Hedhof crashed into an iceberg in the fog and sank with all its passengers and crew. 95 people died. Approaching too close to a floating ice mountain is also dangerous. Icebergs melting from below gradually lose stability and can suddenly capsize, destroying a ship that approaches carelessly.

The capsizing of the iceberg was observed from the board of the motor ship "Ob" in the Davis Sea, and eyewitnesses describe this event as follows:

“In calm weather, a strong roar was heard, comparable in strength to an artillery salvo. Those on deck saw, at a distance of no more than one kilometer, a slowly overturning pyramidal iceberg about forty meters high. Huge blocks of ice broke off from its surface part and fell into the water with a roar. When The surface part of the iceberg noisily sank into the water, and a rather large swell began to emanate from it, causing the ship to rock on the surface of the sea, among the debris, a new hilly and uneven top of the iceberg slowly swayed.

Many large icebergs live in the sea for several years. In Antarctica, large colonies of penguins and other animals often settle on them. seabirds. Some even make nests there. The durability of icebergs gave people the idea of trying to use them for supplies. fresh water dry countries in Africa and Arabia. This is how a project arose to tow large icebergs by special ships to the shores of the Persian Gulf in order to use the water generated during their melting for water supply and irrigation of fields. It is estimated that the amount of water generated by the melting of one medium-sized iceberg is equal to the annual runoff large river. Time will tell how realistic the implementation of such a project will be.

During stormy weather, ships sailing off the coast of Antarctica often use icebergs for protection from the raging waves, taking shelter on their leeward side from the storm. And pilots of Antarctic expeditions sometimes choose their flat surface as a landing strip. Of course, you must always remember the treacherous nature of the ice islands and be on your guard. After all, the behavior of icebergs is unpredictable and you can expect a surprise from them at any moment.

This is how an iceberg once “joked” with the Canadian steamship Porsche. This happened in 1893. The Porsche was on a cruise with large group tourists on board, when suddenly a floating ice mountain appeared ahead of them. The passengers asked the captain to come closer - the iceberg was too beautiful, they wanted to get a better look at it and take a photo close up. But as soon as the ship sailed close to the iceberg and the tourists clicked their cameras, something incomprehensible happened. An unknown force began to lift the Porsche out of the water. A few seconds later, the ship was already above the surface of the sea on a huge ice ledge of an iceberg, which had previously been under water. Apparently, the ice mountain swayed in the water, and when the steamer approached it, the tilt allowed the ship to sail over the underwater cornice. Then the iceberg began to roll in the other direction and lifted the ship into the air. Fortunately, this did not last long. When the iceberg tilted back again, the ship found itself in the water without even receiving minor damage. Full speed ahead the captain directed the steamer away, away from the ice trap. The passengers didn’t even want to think about what could happen if the iceberg capsized.

It must be said that, despite their well-deserved gloomy fame, icebergs make a striking impression on the traveler seeing them for the first time with their unearthly, fabulously romantic beauty. Their shapes can be the most bizarre and unusual: either a giant snow-white swan or a hilly island with wide valleys, which lack only a cozy village, or an island with high mountains, gorges, waterfalls and steep cliffs that form beautiful, picturesque bays. There are icebergs that look like a ship with wind-blown sails, a column on a beautiful pedestal, a pyramid, an ancient city with walls, turrets and drawbridges...

And anyone who happened to see their fantastic outlines on the dark surface of the sea, reminiscent of floating enchanted castles, blue-white, blue-green or pink at sunset, will never forget this majestic and beautiful sight.

Even a relatively small ice mountain 150 m thick, 2 km long and half a kilometer wide contains almost 150 million tons of fresh water, which is completely clean, devoid of impurities and pollutants.

Of course, these projects are not easy to implement. Powerful tugs and reliable cables are needed. It is important to lay out the most favorable path for the iceberg in the ocean in order to use favorable currents and winds, and make the iceberg melt more slowly.

Striped icebergs:

Steven Kazlowski captured these majestic natural ice sculptures that were carved sea water and polar winds at the western tip of Antarctica. Breakaway icebergs float in Antarctic waters for years, and for years Mother Nature, like a skilled sculptor, creates intricate figures.

Colonnade in an iceberg - not photoshop!

Iceberg (German Eisberg, “ice mountain”) is a large, free-floating piece of ice in the ocean or sea.

Typically, icebergs break off from ice shelves.

The nature of icebergs was first correctly explained by the Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov.

Since the density of ice is 920 kg/m³ and the density of sea water is about 1025 kg/m³, about 90% of the iceberg's volume is under water.

In 2000, the largest known ice cap broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf as a result of mechanical ablation. at the moment iceberg B-15 with an area of over 10,000 km².

In the spring of 2005, its fragment - iceberg B-15A - was more than 115 kilometers long and over 2,500 square kilometers in area and was still the largest iceberg observed.
The Ross Ice Shelf iceberg, named B7B, measuring 19 by 8 kilometers (an area larger than Hong Kong) was spotted in early 2010 by NASA and ESA satellite imagery about 1,700 kilometers south of Australia.

The original size of this iceberg was about 400 square kilometers.

Icebergs of this size and so far from their source of origin have not been observed in the last hundred years.

It took iceberg B7B about 10 years to float this far north. The coordinates of iceberg B7B at the beginning of 2010 are -48.8, 107.548° S. w. 107° east long / 48.8° south w. 107.5° E. d..

If an iceberg blue, most likely it is more than 1000 years old.

The dark blue color is the so-called. “black” icebergs that have recently capsized in the water.

Icebergs pose a very great danger to shipping. One of the most famous examples of an iceberg colliding with a ship is the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

They are carried far away by sea currents. And it’s amazing - sometimes the ice mountains seem to float against the current.

This happens because only an eighth or ninth of the entire iceberg rises above the surface of the water, the rest is immersed deep in the water, where the current is sometimes opposite to that on the surface.

Icebergs can reach a height of 100m above the sea surface.

An ice mountain floating in warm waters is usually shrouded in dense fog - this is water vapor from warmer air condensing over its cold surface.

The largest icebergs are born from the giant glaciers of Antarctica.

From time to time, deep cracks form in the glacier, and it splits into separate blocks.

The birth of an iceberg is a spectacular sight. A huge mass of ice falls into the water with a roar reminiscent of a monstrous explosion.

Even a relatively small ice mountain, 150 m thick, 2 km long and half a kilometer wide, contains almost 150 million tons of fresh water, and of very high quality.

This amount of water would be enough for a whole month for such a gigantic city as Moscow, with a population of millions.

In the USA, projects are being developed to transport icebergs to the multimillion-dollar city of Los Angeles, to the port cities of South America, Africa, and Australia.

Once in the water, the iceberg sets off to swim.

Currents sooner or later carry it to warmer latitudes, where it is washed warm waters and it slowly melts under the rays of the sun.

But especially large icebergs manage to move far to the south if they are Arctic icebergs, or far to the north if they are Antarctic.

In just one year, about 26 thousand icebergs break off from the Arctic ice cover.

During the year, approximately 370 icebergs pose a threat to navigation. Therefore in open ocean They are under constant surveillance by a special service.

The construction of inhabited research bases is practiced on icebergs.
It is already sometimes practiced to tow icebergs to dry areas.