Near-Perfect Storms Hits Antarctic Icebergs

Joe writes "A unique, July 20th, satellite "photo" of a near-perfect, tightly-wound, hurricane-like storm in Antarctica (now in the throes of a typical, bitterly cold, austral winter with temps sometimes ranging below -90 F., or -68 C.) can be seen here. The storm is seen in the image near two huge icebergs, B-15A and B-15B, that had calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in March as parts of one monster iceberg, B-15 (186 miles long and 23 miles wide, or 4200 square miles; it's about 2% of the entire area of the Ross Ice Shelf, the largest ice shelf in the world). Iceberg B-15 is also the largest ever recorded in the 24-year database of icebergs maintained at the National Ice Center. (Members of the Coriolis fan club will also happily note the storm's clockwise circulation, the common characteristic of storms in the Southern Hemisphere). It should be interesting to see what effect the storm will have on the positions of these two huge icebergs. N. B., Three other huge icebergs, A-43A, A-43B, and A-44, totaling about 4000 square miles in area, calved from the Ronne Ice Shelf (second largest in the world) in May. They were not near the storm on July 20. It's not just Greenland's ice that's disappearing!" I'm afraid that I lack the background to really understand what's going on here, but a link to the "National Ice Center" was too much to pass up. Betcha didn't even know the U.S. had a National Ice Center, did you. Are these photos interesting because a) the ice cap is melting, b) these huge icebergs are going to wander into shipping lanes, c) they're just so damn big, or d) some other reason?