- 7 hours ago
The world’s largest iceberg has broken free and is drifting across the Atlantic. A massive ocean hole in Belize shows unusual patterns in the water. Both events reveal the immense power of nature and the unexpected ways it can affect oceans and ecosystems. Scientists are studying the phenomena to understand their impact and possible links to climate change. These rare occurrences highlight how much we still don’t know about Earth’s extreme environments. Animation is created by Bright Side.
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00You're lazing around on the deck of the ship when you see something whitish-gray covering the horizon.
00:06Like in a horror movie or your worst nightmare, this weird fog is nearing the vessel.
00:11It's infinite. You can't see where it starts or where it ends.
00:15Soon it makes the ship look like a grain of sand in a vast desert.
00:19That's when the realization hits.
00:21It's an iceberg, and your ship is likely going to repeat the Titanic's fate.
00:26Now, all this is a very likely scenario, since the world's biggest iceberg, A23A, is on the move again after
00:34months of spinning in a huge water vortex.
00:37And it's actually the second time in just a couple of years that this massive chunk of ice has broken
00:43free.
00:43The first time was in 2023, when the berg went wandering around after being stuck on the seafloor for a
00:50staggering 37 years.
00:52The thing is huge, about three times the size of New York City.
00:55It also weighs nearly a trillion tons.
00:58The giant chunk of ice first broke off from Antarctica's Filzner Ice Shelf back in 1986.
01:04But instead of floating away, it got grounded on the seafloor just a few miles from where it started.
01:10Because of that, it melted much more slowly than most icebergs.
01:14In December 2023, A23A finally broke free and started to drift away from Antarctica.
01:21But it didn't get far before getting stuck again.
01:24This time near the South Orkney Islands.
01:27It got trapped in something called a Taylor Column.
01:30That's a huge spinning water current that forms when ocean currents swirl around an underwater mountain.
01:36At one point, A23A was rotating around 15 degrees counterclockwise every day.
01:42Luckily, as of December 2024, the iceberg escaped the Taylor Column and is now slowly moving again.
01:50Researchers are super curious to see if it'll follow the same path as other giant icebergs that have broken off
01:57from Antarctica,
01:57or if it'll find its own unique way.
02:01Such enormous icebergs, such as A23A, release nutrients into the water as they melt.
02:07And it can actually create hot spots of life in parts of the ocean that are usually pretty empty.
02:13But there's still a lot we don't understand about how the size, shape, or origin of the iceberg might affect
02:19that process.
02:20So, to figure it out, scientists have been collecting water samples from the areas A23A is expected to pass through.
02:28And they'll keep collecting samples as it drifts along.
02:31Hopefully, it'll give us a better idea of how massive icebergs like this one influence the ocean around them.
02:37By the way, the glacier our monster of an iceberg was once part of could be very, very old, literally
02:44ancient.
02:45In Antarctica, the oldest glacier ice might be close to 1 million years old.
02:50Over in Greenland, the oldest glacier ice is more than 100,000 years old.
02:55And in Alaska, the oldest glacier ice ever recovered, found in a basin between Mount Bona and Mount Churchill,
03:02is only about 30,000 years old, a mere child.
03:05At the same time, in a typical Alaskan valley glacier,
03:10it only takes about 100 years for newly formed ice to travel through the entire length of the glacier.
03:15For something like Bering Glacier, which is Alaska's largest and stretches over 140 miles,
03:21the ice can move through the whole thing in less than 400 years.
03:25And that's a lot of movement for such a massive glacier.
03:28Now, let's move on to Iceberg Alley, a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean that runs from the Arctic to Newfoundland.
03:34If you want to see as many icebergs as you can, that's the place to be.
03:39Tons of icebergs float through this place every year.
03:42Most of them come from Greenland.
03:44In spring and summer, big chunks of glaciers break off and get carried by north-south currents
03:50through Baffin Bay into the Labrador Sea, where they eventually melt.
03:55Some icebergs also come from Canada's shoreline,
03:58traveling through the Davis Strait and into the Labrador Sea,
04:01before drifting along Newfoundland's eastern and western coasts.
04:05These massive ice chunks are really old, too, about 10,000 years.
04:10Every year, about 400 to 800 medium and large icebergs pass through Iceberg Alley.
04:16How fast they drift depends on their size, shape, currents, waves, and wind,
04:21but the average speed is less than a half mile per hour.
04:25Now, there are six types of icebergs that make their way through Iceberg Alley.
04:29Tabular icebergs are flat slabs of ice, much wider than they are tall.
04:34Blocky icebergs have steep sides and sharp angles, like cut-off pyramids.
04:40Wedged icebergs have one steep side and one sloping side.
04:44Dome icebergs have a rounded top.
04:46Pinnacle icebergs have one or more steep peaks sticking up.
04:50And dry dock icebergs are U-shaped, with a hollowed-out section.
04:54They all look incredible.
04:56Comment below which is your favorite type.
04:59Anyway, as these icebergs drift south, the warmer water speeds up their melting,
05:05making them pretty unpredictable, and sometimes dangerous.
05:08Nowadays, satellites help track medium and large icebergs to prevent accidents.
05:13But smaller icebergs can still be risky for small boats.
05:17One iceberg made headlines in 2018 when it got unusually close to the Newfoundland village of Ferryland.
05:24Pictures of the giant iceberg towering over the village's houses went viral.
05:29It got stuck in a 330-foot deep water, which turned out to be too shallow for its massive size.
05:35And now, I'll take you on an unusual journey to the past
05:39to witness the birth of something beautiful and equally disastrous.
05:42Its very existence led to one of the greatest tragedies in history.
05:47Watch!
05:48An enormous chunk of ice is breaking off a glacier in southwest Greenland.
05:52It's made of snow that fell over 100,000 years ago,
05:55when mammoths were still wandering around the planet.
05:58The enormous iceberg starts its long journey.
06:01It stretches more than 1,700 feet in length and weighs 75 million tons.
06:07Despite its size, it's pretty peaceful.
06:10It stays far away from ships and the busy transport routes near where it was born.
06:15But then, it starts floating south, much farther than most icebergs ever get.
06:21Usually, icebergs like this melt way before they reach such warm waters.
06:26Out of the 15,000 to 30,000 icebergs that drift away from Greenland's glaciers every year,
06:32only about 1% make it all the way to the Atlantic.
06:35So, the fact that this iceberg keeps going and reaches over 5,000 miles south of the Arctic Circle by
06:42April
06:42makes it truly unique.
06:44Even after months of melting, this block of ice is still incredibly massive.
06:49It weighs around 1.5 million tons, which is almost twice as much as the Golden Gate Bridge.
06:56Above the water, its visible parts tower more than 100 feet high.
07:00But, like most icebergs, the majority of it, about 90%, is hidden below the surface.
07:07The iceberg's story takes a tragic turn on April 14, 1912, when, guess what?
07:14Yep, it comes across the ocean liner Titanic.
07:17The ship is about 370 miles from Newfoundland in the North Atlantic Ocean
07:22when the iceberg seems to appear out of nowhere.
07:25The crew doesn't spot it until just minutes before the crash.
07:29Why don't they see it sooner?
07:31That's a good question.
07:33Now, most people imagine icebergs as tall, bright, white chunks of ice,
07:37maybe even covered with snow.
07:39But in reality, icebergs come in all sorts of colors.
07:43Some are striped, patterned, or even have candy-like swirls.
07:47And they can also be black.
07:49There are two ways an iceberg can turn black.
07:51When the ice is extremely pure, with no bubbles or cracks,
07:55then it absorbs all the light, instead of reflecting it, making it look black.
08:00Or a volcanic eruption can cover a glacier in ash.
08:03If ice from that glacier breaks off, it can have a dark or black color.
08:09Scientists still aren't sure why the Titanic's iceberg looked dark.
08:13Or even if it really did.
08:15But one sailor who was on the lookout in the crow's nest said it seemed black.
08:19Another described it as gray or dark gray.
08:23One theory is this iceberg could have been a black bird,
08:26which forms when the top part melts, causing the iceberg to roll over.
08:31If the bottom is smooth enough to absorb light, it looks dark.
08:35But even if the iceberg wasn't truly black,
08:38nighttime could have made it much harder to spot.
08:41Icebergs don't reflect much light, especially if they're jagged or vertical.
08:46They end up blending into the dark, shimmering ocean.
08:49Without radar, icebergs at night are incredibly hard to see,
08:53which is probably why the Titanic's crew didn't notice it in time.
09:28And the scariest part is that in the last 20 years, there's been a huge spike.
09:34But let's start from the very beginning.
09:36This is Belize, a small country on the northeastern coast of Central America.
09:42And this is the Great Blue Hole.
09:45A huge, deep underwater sinkhole about 410 feet deep
09:50and approximately 50 miles off the coast of Belize.
09:53It formed around 10,000 years ago, when the sea levels rose after the last ice age.
10:00A team of scientists arrived in Central America to study mud from way down in the Great Blue.
10:06They pulled out a long sample of sediment,
10:09which is basically layers of stuff that settled over time.
10:12You might ask, so what?
10:15How are tropical storms connected with this sediment?
10:19Let's see.
10:20Tropical cyclones are big, spinning storms that form over warm ocean water.
10:25They pull up heat from the sea and blast it into the sky.
10:28And yeah, they can be devastatingly destructive,
10:32with super strong winds, heavy rain, and floods from big waves.
10:37And mud cores, like the one the researchers pulled up,
10:41are actually records of tropical storms.
10:44The sample they pulled up was 98 feet long,
10:47which made it the longest ever found in that area.
10:50Here's how it works.
10:51Every year, two thin layers of sediment settle in the hole where the weather is calm.
10:57But when a big storm hits, it leaves behind a different, messier layer.
11:02So by looking at these layers,
11:04scientists could tell how many storms hit that spot over the last 5,700 years.
11:11It's like counting tree rings, you know?
11:14Anyway, what they found was rather unexpected.
11:17It turns out that tropical cyclones had been getting more and more calming.
11:21The lead researcher said that over the past 6,000 years,
11:25there were usually between 4 and 16 tropical storms, or hurricanes, every 100 years.
11:32But just in the last 20 years alone,
11:35they found signs of 9 storms in that same little area.
11:39That's way more than usual, and it shows how much things are changing.
11:45Scientists think there are two main reasons why tropical storms have been happening more often.
11:50One reason has to do with something called the Intertropical Convergent Zone, or ITCZ.
11:56This is an area near the equator where winds from the north and south come together.
12:02That spot has low air pressure, lots of moisture, and tons of thunderstorms.
12:08Just above it is the part of the Atlantic Ocean where most hurricanes are born.
12:12It even has an official name, the Hurricane Main Development Region.
12:18Normally, the ITCZ moves north in the summer and south in the winter because of changes in ocean temperatures.
12:24But over the past few thousand years, it's slowly been shifting farther and farther south.
12:31That's why the area where storms usually start has also moved south.
12:36It means storms are now forming and heading toward lower parts of the Atlantic than they used to.
12:41The second reason for the recent spike in storms is rising ocean temperatures.
12:47Earth has gotten warmer, and the ocean has warmed up too.
12:52The warm oceans help make more powerful storms.
12:55Such an increase likely means that this part of the world might see a lot more big storms in the
13:01future.
13:02If things keep going the way they are, scientists think the Caribbean could get hit by as many as 45
13:08tropical storms and hurricanes by the end of this century.
13:12That's way more than anything the world has experienced in the last 5,700 years.
13:18There are just too many changes in the world that influence the situation.
13:22They create the perfect conditions for more storms to form and get really intense really fast.
13:28But if you think storms are getting more intense only over the ocean, let me tell you about America.
13:35A bunch of really dangerous storms, including tornadoes, dust storms, and wildfires,
13:40tore through several states in the Midwest and south of the USA in March 2025.
13:47At least 42 people lost their lives, and the scale of the devastation is enormous.
13:53What's scary is that most of this destruction didn't happen in the usual Tornado Alley area.
14:00Tornado Alley is a nickname for a part of the U.S. where tornadoes happen a lot.
14:05It stretches through places like northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, parts of Louisiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and even eastern Colorado.
14:15But this time, storms hit places like Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama.
14:21Experts had warned this might happen.
14:24At the beginning of 2025, they said that tornadoes could start showing up more often farther east than usual.
14:31And that's exactly what's happening.
14:35One of their top weather experts said people in the Mississippi and Tennessee valleys should get ready for a rough
14:42spring.
14:42There are more people living in these areas than in traditional tornado zones,
14:46and many of them live in mobile homes or buildings without basements,
14:51which puts them at more risk when big storms hit.
14:55A tornado is basically a spinning tube of super-strong wind that comes down from storm clouds and touches the
15:02ground.
15:02They can be really dangerous.
15:05To figure out how strong a tornado is, scientists use something called the Enhanced Fujita Scale.
15:11It goes from EF0, which stands for the weakest tornado, to EF5.
15:17Such a tornado is crazy strong.
15:20Tear your house apart strong.
15:23The main question is, why are tornadoes happening more in the east now?
15:28In the U.S., tornado season usually kicks off in March.
15:32That's when cold air from Canada bumps into warm, wet air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico.
15:38And boom!
15:39Storms start to form.
15:41But this year, things are a bit different.
15:44Here's what's going on.
15:46There's a big patch of high pressure.
15:48Basically, a chunk of calm, warm air hanging over the southwest.
15:52That's keeping things more stable out west, so fewer thunderstorms, as well as fewer tornadoes, are expected there.
15:59So, tornadoes are shifting eastward.
16:03Meanwhile, the Gulf of Mexico is super warm this year, and that's helping storms form in the southeastern U.S.
16:10The warm water adds a lot of energy to the atmosphere, which can lead to stronger, more frequent storms in
16:16places like Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee.
16:20Up north, around the Great Lakes and northeast, it's staying cooler this spring.
16:25That means fewer big storms up there, at least for now.
16:29Now, let's get back to those devastating March storms.
16:32On March 14 and 15, a huge storm system blasted through parts of the central and southern U.S.
16:40This system brought 52 confirmed tornadoes, massive dust storms, and fast-moving wildfires.
16:47It all led to almost 1,100 canceled flights.
16:51About 150 million people were affected by this natural disaster.
16:56Two really strong tornadoes, classified as EF-4s, hit Arkansas.
17:02The damage was incredible.
17:04One of those tornadoes, which hit a town called Diaz, had winds up to 190 miles per hour.
17:11That's insanely fast!
17:14For comparison, the average speed of a Formula One car is around 130 to 160 miles per hour.
17:22It was the first time in over 25 years that Arkansas got hit by two EF-4s on the same
17:28day.
17:29Experts also recorded wind gusts moving at a speed of over 80 miles per hour in the southern plains.
17:35In Texas, dust storms led to fatal car crashes.
17:40Wildfires, caused and driven by the strong winds, burned through parts of Texas and Oklahoma.
17:46Oklahoma alone had more than 130 fires.
17:49So, what's next?
17:52Experts think the U.S. could see between 1,300 and 1,450 tornadoes in 2025.
18:00That's way more than the usual 1,225.
18:04And it's not just about tornadoes.
18:07A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture.
18:09That means heavier rains, more flash floods, and even more powerful storms.
18:15Basically, the formula is the following.
18:18Warmer oceans plus warmer air equals stormy weather, especially in the east and southeast.
18:24But even if you don't live in any of these areas, you can't feel completely at ease either.
18:29Experts say tornadoes and other natural disasters can happen pretty much anywhere in the U.S.
18:34The risk moves around depending on the time of year and the weather.
18:39That's it for today.
18:40So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
18:45Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
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