The Petermann Glacier before the ice island broke off this week.
An island of ice twice the size of Manhattan broke off this week from a Greenland glacier, a University of Delaware researcher reports.
The 59-square-mile (150 square kilometers) iceberg is the second massive loss for the Petermann Glacier in two years, researcher Andreas Muenchow reports. In 2010, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan was lost from the glacier.
“While the size is not as spectacular as it was in 2010, the fact that it follows so closely to the 2010 event brings the glacier’s terminus to a location where it has not been for at least 150 years,” Muenchow says in a university press release.
The researcher says its too early to blame global warming for the loss of Greenland ice, however.
“Northwest Greenland and northeast Canada are warming more than five times faster than the rest of the world,” Muenchow says in the press release, “but the observed warming is not proof that the diminishing ice shelf is caused by this, because air temperatures have little effect on this glacier; ocean temperatures do, and our ocean temperature time series are only five to eight years long — too short to establish a robust warming signal.”
Muenchow says the massive chunk of ice is expected to eventually enter the Nares Strait between Greenland and Canada, where it will break up into smaller icebergs.
That could take a while. Pieces of the 2010 calving can still be found along the Canadian coast as far south as Labrador, Muenchow said.
I am her daugter i love news and I am 10
We have had 5 ice ages not one. And each one was less than the one before. GEEEE what melts ice?? Heat! So where are we between number 5 and number 6? Still on the upswing of the curve? Probably. Our sun is expanding, hmmm does that cause more heat? Global warming my rear.
Sounds like you got it all figured out, im electing you in November. You seem to have it all figured out.
very true. hopefully our sun is just in its peak cycle / solar maximum. I hear we have another year of solar maximum though. 5 or 6 years from now should be a cooler summer. 5 or 6 years ago my area had a cool summer, and rained 2/3 of the summer. crops didnt grow well.
Isn't this what glaciers do? They break off and make icebergs.
Best Monday Reading Ever!
according to the media all weather and events (including wars and mass shootings) are caused by one or both of the following:
1) Global warming
2) Mitt Romney
Mitt does not believe in global warming.He certainly knows how to make a buck and outsource american jobs and withhold his income tax returns though.
lame. obama hasnt done sq ua t for almost 4 years, and waiting until after the next election to enact anything is just plain silly. why cant obama act on things now?? oh mr russian president, wait until the next election and ill have more leway. theres just something real fishy about that bu ll ** **
Interesting to see the intelligence displayed here. The Naked Ape examines his future and concludes that everything is OK and climate change is just another fiction conceived by troublemakers...and he takes another step into extinction.