From what we’ve seen in movies, geography textbooks, and even in real life, icebergs are normally all-white and gruffly due to compressed snow on the surface. They are suspended bodies of ice in water and all we ever see are the tips, usually about 10 percent of the entire iceberg. Now, in a stunning series of photos, the underside of an iceberg has been revealed.
Filmmaker Alex Cornell got lucky enough to see and capture the underside of an iceberg near the shore of the Antarctic Peninsula [1]. In one of the coldest regions of the world, deep within the South Polar Region, Cornell was on vacation with his family and during a trip to a glacial bay called Cierva Cove, they spotted a rare natural phenomenon that many people would have given anything to see.
Glassy, crystal-like, clear-cut and absolutely stunning, it was the underside of an iceberg that had flipped over. Cornell explained that the iceberg was floating with about 30 feet of it above water and the crystal-like ice had water running through it, “almost like an ant colony.”
“Everything I was seeing was pretty exciting,” Cornell said. “This particular iceberg at the time kind of blended in with all the crazy stuff we were seeing.”
Read: Photographer Captures Amazing Photos of a Rare White Rainbow
Iceberg mechanics – Formation, floating and flipping
Icebergs are chunks of freshwater ice broken off from glaciers in a process called calving, usually accompanied by loud cracking noise as the massive ice drops into the water. As large as they are, icebergs are actually able to float for three reasons [2]:
- Liquid water is more dense than ice (if something floats in a liquid it is less dense)
- A lot of air is trapped in icebergs.
- Icebergs are made of freshwater, which doesn’t have nearly as many dissolved solids (mostly salt) in it. This makes freshwater less dense than seawater, making them even more buoyant.
The only way to see the underside of an iceberg is to swim deep below the surface, and this is not something you’d enjoy doing even in the thickest of wet suits.
Iceberg flipping usually occurs when the iceberg begins to melt in warmer temperatures. Melting can upset the equilibrium of the iceberg and when the temperature of the water around it begins to rise, the iceberg might flip over, revealing a perfect, glossy underside.
Heavy storms and enormous turbulence can also disturb the equilibrium of an iceberg.
According to Professor Justin Burton of Emory University, icebergs are flipping more now as climate change is on the rise and they are starting to melt rapidly in the coldest regions.
“Usually these tongues of ice would extend far out into the sea and actually be floating there. But now they’re not floating, and [icebergs] tend to break off right at the point where the ice touches the ground,” he said. “It’s like squirting toothpaste out of a tube. A little bit of toothpaste comes out the tube, then it breaks off, and a little bit more comes out the tube, then it breaks off. So you get these really thin pieces of ice that flip over right when they’ve broken off.”
Even with a seismic recording device, he cannot accurately tell the frequency of iceberg flipping in many regions, but they are happening all the same.
Reflected blue lights
The blue color is due to the scattering of blue light by the ice crystals as red and yellow light from the sun pass through [3]. This usually occurs in older icebergs, where years of compression would increase the density of the ice and eliminate air bubbles. The denser the ice, the more suitable it is to absorb red light and reflect blue light.
Microorganisms, organic matter, and mineral compounds may cause the ice to take on a greenish tint, hence the vivid blue-green appearance.
“It’s like if you see a double rainbow over a whale breaching … you’re just lucky that you’re there,” said Cornell, honored to have brought such a stunning sight to millions of people around the world. “Anybody could have been there and captured it, so I am happy that I was the one for this one.”
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Sources
- Melissa Wiley. An Iceberg Flipped Over, and Its Underside Is Breathtaking. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/photographer-captures-stunning-underside-flipped-iceberg-180953951/. Retrieved 20-01-2020
- Staff. Why Do Icebergs Float? Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/32110-why-do-icebergs-float.html. Retrieved 20-01-2020
- Stephen Luntz. This Is What The Underside Of An Iceberg Looks Like. IFL Science. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/underside-iceberg/. Retrieved 20-01-2020