tisdag 10 mars 2026
More icebergs in the South Atlantic threaten Swedish coastal cities
Have you heard of the "Doomsday Glacier"?
Kalle Sundin
Aftonbladet's editorial page is independent Social Democratic.
A23a is known as the queen of icebergs. It from northwest Antarctica 40 years ago. At the time it was the largest in the world – about 4,000 square kilometers – which is larger than the entire island of Gotland. It has been estimated to weigh 1.1 trillion tons.
But now A23a has only weeks left before it melts completely, scientists believe.
The iceberg’s journey was initially uneventful. For 30 of its 40 years in freedom, it was stuck on the bottom of the South Atlantic. But in 2024, it broke free. For a while, it looked like it would crash straight into the island of South Georgia, which would have been bad news for the hundreds of thousands of king penguins that breed there. It was close, but in the end, A23a took a different path around the island instead.
Large chunks of ice have fallen off. Andrew Meijers, a researcher at the British Antarctic Survey, believes that this is most likely due to the higher sea temperatures we have seen in recent decades. Now the iceberg has also moved towards the northern parts of the ocean where the water is warmer. This makes the process even shorter.
“It’s hard to believe that it won’t be around any time soon,” says glaciologist Christopher Shuman, who is now retired but has followed A23a for much of his career.
Tomorrow's scientists will have far more objects to study. The king penguins on South Georgia have only just begun. The era of climate change is coming with floating icebergs.
In recent decades, the ice sheets in Antarctica have lost trillions of tons through increased melting and iceberg formation. This is largely due to warmer ocean water and changes in ocean currents.
This risks leading to a catastrophicf rise in sea levels.
You may have heard of the Doomsday Glacier? It is a nickname given to the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. It covers an area the size of Great Britain and has begun to melt at a breakneck pace. It contains water that would mean a 60-centimeter sea level rise.
Not only that. Thwaites also acts as a kind of cork that holds back other enormous ice sheets. If it were to break, scientists estimate that we would be talking about a sea level rise of around 3 meters. The consequences will be enormous in cities like Miami and London. Not to mention low-lying coastal countries, such as Bangladesh.
The impact will also be great for Sweden. Melting in Antarctica affects our water level more than melting in Greenland does because the rise will be greatest in areas far away from a melting ice sheet. The fate of Swedish coastal cities is also linked to the icebergs in the South Atlantic.
Right now, politics is strictly focused on geopolitical tensions, wars and the economic effects that come with them. Then the climate issue falls into the shadows again. In Sweden, the government parties are divided among themselves about how many of the climate goals should be scrapped. At the same time, electrification has slowed down. We are facing a major rearmament, which will lead to investments in the defense industry. What will be left for the technological shifts of the transition?
On March 5, A23a had shrunk from its previous 4,000 square kilometers to about 180. After all, this is the queen of icebergs we are talking about. An era is about to end. The one that follows could be really unpleasant for all of us.
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