Question

Occasionally, huge icebergs are found floating on the ocean's currents. Suppose one such iceberg is 124 km long, 41.5 km wide, and 217 m thick.

(a) How much heat in joules would be required to melt this iceberg (assumed to be at 0°C) into liquid water at 0°C? The density of ice is 917 kg/m³ and the latent heat of fusion is 334 kJ/kg.

(b) The annual energy consumption for Australia in the 2017-2018 financial year was 6.172×10¹⁸ J. If this energy was delivered to the iceberg every year, how many years would it take before the ice melted?

Answer 1