Monday 1 March 2021

The size of an iceberg depends on where you live...

From Bedford Today: An iceberg which has been dubbed 'the size of Bedfordshire' has broken off from Antarctica, near to a British Antarctic Survey (BAS) station. The 1,270km2, 150 metre-thick chunk of frozen water separated from the Brunt Ice Shelf this morning.

Their fifteen seconds of fame didn't last long.

From The Metro: A huge iceberg nearly as large as Greater London has broken off the Antarctic ice shelf near a British research station.

From Paris Match: Un iceberg géant de la taille de Paris se détache de l'Antarctique

From rtlnieuws.nl: IJsberg ter grootte van provincie Utrecht breekt af van Antarctica

From rte.ie: Iceberg the size of Co Monaghan calves in Antarctica

From Bild.de: In der Antarktis ist ein riesiger Eisberg vom Schelfeis abgebrochen. Das teilte die Organisation British Antarctic Survey (BAS) am Freitag mit. Der Eisberg mit einer Fläche von 1270 Quadratkilometern (etwa halb so groß wie das Saarland) war Teil des Brunt-Schelfeises, einem Gletscher in der Antarktis.

Bonus points to hln.be, who didn't describe its size in relation to anywhere in Belgium: De ijsberg ter grootte van de agglomeratie rond Parijs of Londen is losgekomen van het ijsplateau Brunt.

What's interesting is that in Dutch/Flemish, they capitalise the I and the J.

10 comments:

Penseivat said...

I wonder if there were any icebergs calving before Greta Tuborg or Bill Shutthegates were born. If not, then it's down to global warming/climate change/pick your own disaster name. If they did, indeed, calve, then perhaps these saviours of the planet should STFU?

A K Haart said...

An iceberg which has been dubbed 'nowhere near the size of Derbyshire'

Hmm - maybe I just can't do headlines.

Mark Wadsworth said...

P, that's the interesting thing. The BAS people said that this is perfectly normal and nothing to do with globular warming. That didn't stop the usual suspects from saying it was.

AKH, try expressing it as a fraction? It's nearly half the size of Derbyshire.

View from the Solent said...

Mark,
In Dutch, 'ij' is (usually) treated as a single letter.
Informally, it is sometimes handwritten written as a 'y' with a dot above each of the uprights.

Mark Wadsworth said...

VFTS, aha, thanks, that explains a lot.

Bayard said...

I feel robbed, I thought the international unit of large areas was Wales. It should have been an iceberg half the size of Wales.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, me too. But this iceberg was only 1/16 the size of Wales.

James Higham said...

“ What's interesting is that in Dutch/Flemish, they capitalise the I and the J.”

Fascinating.

Ralph Musgrave said...

This tendency to relate the size of icebergs to the size of a city in ONE'S OWN COUNTRY is known as "Iceberg Xenophobia", a subject in which I spent ten years (at the taxpayers' expense) getting a PhD. Iceberg Xenophobia is a classic bit of far right ideology, and must be eradicated wherever it is in evidence.

Mark Wadsworth said...

RM, nope. It's only xenophobic when we do it. When foreigners do it, it's quaint and charming.