Winds blow icebergs away from NZ

1 Dec 2009, 3:28 pm   -   Source: AAP
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Strong westerly winds in the southern Pacific Ocean have driven away scores of icebergs originally headed toward New Zealand, an oceanographer says.

Strong westerly winds in the southern Pacific Ocean have driven away scores of icebergs originally headed toward New Zealand, an oceanographer says.

Maritime authorities have been monitoring the iceberg flotilla as it drifted north from Antarctica toward New Zealand's South Island, causing a shipping alert to be sent out last week.

"It looks like they've all disappeared east of New Zealand," oceanographer Mike Williams, with New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

He said it would be unlikely they would be seen anywhere near the coastline.

The nearest one, measuring about 100 to 200 metres long, was 260 kilometres southeast of New Zealand's Stewart Island a week ago.

Australian glaciologist Neal Young said satellite imaging showed no sign of any icebergs northeast of Auckland Islands, 400 kilometres south of New Zealand.

"If ice is there, it's below 500 feet (150 metres) in length," the smallest size detectable on satellite images, Young said.

Williams said melting and erosion by waves would have made many of the icebergs quite small by now, and it was unlikely scientists would spot them again on satellite.

Large numbers of icebergs last floated close to New Zealand in 2006, when some were visible from the coastline - the first such sighting since 1931.

Scientists say the current flotilla of icebergs likely split off Antarctica in 2000 when parts of two major ice shelves - the Ross Sea Ice Shelf and Ronne Ice Shelf - fractured.

The Ross Sea Ice Shelf is the size of France and is also widely believed to be the origin of the 2006 icebergs.

Icebergs are routinely sloughed off as part of the natural development of ice shelves.

The latest appearance of the bergs in waters south of New Zealand depends as much on weather patterns and ocean currents as on the rate at which icebergs are calving off Antarctic ice shelves.

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