Antarctic iceberg continues to drift near the coast of Australia (NASA satellite images)

Nov. 17, B17-B Iceberg (Jason Ahrens, AFP/Getty Images)

A large iceberg, nearly the size of Washington DC, continues to drift toward the Southwestern Australian coast.  

The iceberg, known as B17-B, was spotted last week on satellite imaging about 1,100 miles (1,700 kilometers) off the coast of Australia.

This iceberg is one of several that broke of the Antarctica in 2000 when parts of two major ice shelves:  the Ross Sea Ice Shelf and Ronne Ice Shelf, fractured.

Icebergs frequently split off Antarctica’s ice shelves, and often get swept up in strong circumpolar currents that carry the icebergs around the icy continent, with them occasionally drifting northward, out of the continent’s orbit.  But rarely,  do icebergs drift as far north as Australia without melting significantly.

The iceberg was originally 140 square kilometers and or 54 square miles but has since shrunk down to 115 square km and or 44 square miles and was continuing to break up as it crossed warmer waters.  The large iceberg is expected to break into small pieces and dissolve as it moves across the warm waters but it is hard to say when that will happen.

Two other large icebergs were spotted further east, off Australia's Macquarie Island, followed by more than 100 smaller ice chunks that were heading towards New Zealand.

The biggest threat the icebergs including B17-B pose are to shipping as shards of glacier ice could puncture ships in the area.

Neal Young, a glaciologist with the Australia Antarctic Division, said if sea temperatures rise due to the debated global warming, then more scenes such as these will become more common.

NASA Released Images of B17-B

(Iceberg B17-B Adrift Off the Southwestern Coast of Australia as seen on Dec. 11, 2009. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

(Iceberg B17-B Adrift Off the Southwestern Coast of Australia as seen on Nov. 29, 2009. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

(Iceberg B17-B Adrift Off the Southwestern Coast of Australia as seen on Nov. 5, 2009. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

Sources: AP News, NASA, Universe Today

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