How many icebergs are there in the Southern Ocean? And how are they coded?
Jeff Redman The Antarctic ice sheet is the `iceberg factory of the Southern Ocean. It is estimated by scientists that the total volume of ice calved from the ice sheet each year is about 2300 cu km and that there are about 300,000 icebergs in the Southern Ocean at any one time. Icebergs can range in size from a few metres (called `growlers ) to particularly large icebergs of up to 50km long. Large icebergs those at least 18.5km long are given code names that sound like those used for aircraft: C-14, B-12A, and so on. The codes come from the quadrant of Antarctica where the icebergs were originally sighted often by satellite. `A the area from 0 – 90W (Bellingshausen/Weddell Seas), `B designates the area from 90W – 180 (Amundsen/eastern Ross Seas), `C the area from 180 – 90E (western Ross Sea/Wilkes Land), and `D the area from 90 – 0 (Amery Ice Shelf/eastern Weddell Sea). C -14, for example, is the 14th iceberg to be tracked in quadrant C since big icebergs were first tracked in 1976. La
