Beware of the B15A

I was browsing the Guardian newspaper this morning, as I do most mornings, reading all the main stories and occasionally a few others if I have time, when I read about the B15A, a huge iceberg in the Antarctic that is on the move. It's 76 miles long, 17 miles wide is made up of 1,200 square miles of ice and snow, is disrupting the feeding patterns of, according to scientists, as many as 50,000 penguinswho are now forced to travel more than 60 miles to find food, it is part of an even bigger iceberg that broke loose from the mainland in 2000 and split into two in November 2003, US experts reckon B15A contains enough fresh water to supply Egypt's Nile River complex for 80 years - or to satisfy the water requirements of the UK population for 60 years. It was drifting north at about 1.2 miles a day when it wedged between the land and a tiny island, where it now stops the wind and currents breaking up the thick layer of ice covering coastal waters. "There is more blocked ice in McMurdo Sound than we've ever recorded in living history for this time of year," Mr Sanson said.

Then, the best bit is that Lou Sanson, chief executive of Antarctica New Zealand (the most important guy doing reasearch there), called the iceberg "the largest floating thing on the planet right now".

Wow. He's a genius.