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Peterman ice shelf calves another massive ice island
This image taken by NASA’s MODIS satellite in 2010 shows an ice island about four times the size of Manhattan breaking off Greenland’s Peterman Ice Shelf.
By Summit Voice
SUMMIT COUNTY — The University of Delaware is reporting that an ice island nearly twice the size of Manhattan has broken free of Greenland’s massive Peterman Glacier, which connects the Greenland ice sheet with the ocean via a floating ice shelf.
The calving was reported July 16 by University of Delaware professor Andreas Muenchow in his Icy Seas” blog. Muenchow credited Trudy Wohleben of the Canadian Ice Service for first noticing the fracture, subsequently confirmed by one of NASA’s Earth-watch satellites.
The same glacier spawned an iceberg nearly twice as big in 2010, which cut the size of the floating ice shelf by about 25 percent. The latest calving event puts the terminus of the glacier in a location where it hasn’t been for at least 150 years, according to Muenchow. (more…)
Filed under: climate and weather, Environment, global warming | Tagged: climate, Ellesmere Island, global warming, Greenand ice sheet, Nares Strait, Peterman Glacier, University of Delaware | 1 Comment »
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