Giant Ice Island Breaks Off Greenland

[marmar]

WASHINGTON — A giant ice island has broken off the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland.

A University of Delaware researcher says the floating ice sheet covers 100 square miles – more than four times the size of New York's Manhattan Island.

Andreas Muenchow, who is studying the Nares Strait between Greenland and Canada, said the ice sheet broke off early Thursday. He says the new ice island was discovered by Trudy Wohlleben of the Canadian Ice Service.

Not since 1962 has such a large chunk of ice calved in the Arctic, but researchers have noticed cracks in recent months in the floating tongue of the glacier.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/07/petermann-glacier-giant-i_n_674326.html

[lpbk2713]

1. Just for context ...

... here's Manhattan Island.





Now think at least four times larger.

WTF are we doing to ourselves?

[The_Commonist]

3. No, that's only half of Manhattan Island.

I'm actually not that terribly impressed by this story.
There were icebergs breaking off Antarctica the size of Rhode Island.
I have walked the length of Manhattan a number of times, and can walk the width of it in 20 minutes to a half hour.
OK, it's a really big iceberg.
Yeah, we're totally fucking ourselves over environmentally.
But I don't see that as being out of the realm of the ordinary.

[lpbk2713]

4. I stand corrected.

I thought it was larger than that but that was the best pic I could find. Thanks.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fleshdancer]

5. "the floating ice sheet covers 100 square miles"

damn. :(