File:Iceberg B44 calved from Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica (MODIS 2017-10-28).jpg

English: Scientists have long been tracking the retreat of Pine Island Glacier—one of the main outlets where ice from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet flows into the ocean. A new iceberg, dubbed B44, calved from the glacier between September 21 and 23, 2017.

The new iceberg, afloat in the Amundsen Sea, had an area of about 185 square kilometers (72 square miles). That’s larger than the pieces that broke away in January 2017, but smaller than the 583-square-kilometer berg that broke loose in July 2015 and the 700-square-kilometer berg in November 2013.

About one month later, on October 23, NASA imagery showed that B44 had fractured into more than 20 smaller ‘bergs. None of the fractured pieces are large enough to be named and tracked by the U.S. National Ice Center, which has removed B44 from their table of tracked bergs. Icebergs that were calved in 2015 and earlier in 2017 were also almost immediately torn apart by wind and currents.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of the fracturing B44 iceberg on October 22. The Pine Island Glacier sits in the southeast section of the image. An area of open water, which appears black, separates the glacier from the roughly rectangular Iceberg B44. To the northeast, sea ice floats on the waters of the Amundsen Sea. Close inspection of the image shows fissures in roughened surface of the iceberg, but the fractured pieces have not yet separated enough to show open water between them.