Largest Iceberg to Break of the Greenland Glacier in 50 years | Arctic Portal

The largest Iceberg since 1962 has broken of the Greenlandic Ice sheet. The Iceberg comes from the Petermann glacier in North-West Greenland which is one of the largest glaciers connecting the Greenland Inland ice sheet with the Arctic Ocean- As the glacier reaches out into the ocean a tongue of ice is formed, which moves annually about one km. The Ice tongue of the Peterman glacier was the largest one in Greenland, with an extension of about 70km into the sea until now when this massive Iceberg has broken free.

The ice island has a surface area of about 161 square kilometers or 100 square miles and a thickness of about a 190 meters high. These astonishing numbers can be put in perspective by saying that it's four times larger than Manhattan and it's height approximately half of the empire state building- the freshwater stored in the ice island could keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days.

it can be estimated that this event was hastened by rising sea and air temperatures in the Arctic but perhaps not a direct consequence of the warming. In 1962 a 370 square kilometer iceberg broke of from the nearby Ward Hunt Ice Shelf.

There is some fear that the Ice island may travel down into the Baffin bay area, where there is a lot it could crash against. Further more it could over a number of years reach as far as into the North Atlantic either as still rather large ice island or it could brake up into smaller parts which in both event could pose a threat to infrastructure and shipping lanes.