CTVNews: Giant iceberg breaks off Antarctic glacier

Dominic Rech CNN Published Thursday, February 13, 2020 2:12AM EST

The Pine Island Glacier recently spawned an iceberg over 300 square kilometres that very quickly shattered. This image, captured Tuesday by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, shows the freshly broken bergs in detail. (European Space Agency)

A story about a glacier shedding mass at the edge of the world, threatening to raise ocean levels and potentially contribute to untold environmental change.

Sound familiar? That’s because it probably is. But if you weren’t paying attention before, it probably is worth doing so now.

An iceberg has broken off Pine Island Glacier (PIG) on the edge of Antarctica, according to satellite images taken Tuesday by the European Space Agency (ESA).

And it’s a big one. At more than 300 square kilometres (116 square miles), the iceberg was almost as big as Atlanta and roughly the same size as Malta — although it very quickly fragmented.

“What you are looking at is both terrifying and beautiful,” Mark Drinkwater, head of the Earth and Mission Sciences Division at the ESA, told CNN.