According to the European Space Agency, an iceberg twice the size of Stewart Island has broken off from Antarctica and sunk into the Weddell Sea, becoming the world's largest afloat.

The newly formed iceberg, dubbed A-76 by scientists, was discovered in satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 spacecraft, according to a statement released by the European Space Agency.

The iceberg has a surface area of 4320 square kilometers and measures 175 kilometers by 25 kilometers.

In contrast, Stewart Island has a total land area of 1746 square kilometers, while Mallorca, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean, has a total land area of 3640 square kilometers.

The British Antarctic Survey discovered A-76, which was later confirmed by the US National Ice Centre in Maryland using imagery from Copernicus Sentinel-1, a pair of polar-orbiting satellites.

Instead of floating northward through shipping lanes, scientists expect the iceberg to break up and its parts to orbit Antarctica for years or decades.

Scientists agree that global warming has resulted in the thinning of such shelves, but they disagree on whether the most recent occurrence can be attributed to climate change.

"It is not a region that is changing significantly as a result of global warming. The key point is that it's all part of a natural cycle "According to Alex Brisbourne, a British Antarctic Survey glaciologist.

"It's large enough to affect the climate, and the ocean's salinity," Brisbourne said.

In July 2017, one of the world's largest icebergs, a trillion-tonne monster more than seven times the size of New York City, calved off the coast of Antarctica.