Skip to comments.Crack in the Earth: Greenland glacier loses ice island twice the size of Manhattan
Posted on 07/17/2012 9:19:49 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Its business as usual at the Petermann glacier, doing what a glacier does, calving ice into the sea. We reported on another chunk in 2010, four Manhattans in size. Borrowing from an oft used media ploy, at this rate, it will be down to ice cube size in ten years. I wonder though, if wed ever have noticed any of this without MODIS? Keep that in mind when reading the claims.
From the University of Delaware An ice island twice the size of Manhattan has broken off from Greenlands Petermann Glacier, according to researchers at the University of Delaware and the Canadian Ice Service. The Petermann Glacier is one of the two largest glaciers left in Greenland connecting the great Greenland ice sheet with the ocean via a floating ice shelf.
Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering in UDs College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, reports the calving on July 16, 2012, in his Icy Seas blog. Muenchow credits Trudy Wohleben of the Canadian Ice Service for first noticing the fracture.
The discovery was confirmed by reprocessing data taken by MODIS, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASAs Terra and Aqua satellites.
At 46 square miles (120 square km), this latest ice island is about half the size of the mega-calving that occurred from the same glacier two years ago. The 2010 chunk, also reported by Muenchow, was four times the size of Manhattan.
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 glaciers terminus to a location where it has not been for at least 150 years, Muenchow says.
The Greenland ice sheet as a whole is shrinking, melting and reducing in size as the result of globally changing air and ocean temperatures and associated changes in circulation patterns in both the ocean and atmosphere, he notes.
Muenchow points out that the air around northern Greenland and Ellesmere Island has warmed by about 0.11 +/- 0.025 degrees Celsius per year since 1987.
Northwest Greenland and northeast Canada are warming more than five times faster than the rest of the world, Muenchow says, 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.
The ocean and sea ice observing array that Muenchow and his research team installed in 2003 with U.S. National Science Foundation support in Nares Strait, the deep channel between Greenland and Canada, has recorded data from 2003 to 2009.
The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Henry Larsen is scheduled to travel to Nares Strait and Petermann Fjord later this summer to recover moorings placed by UD in 2009. These mooring data, if recovered, will provide scientists with ocean current, temperature, salinity and ice thickness data at better than hourly intervals from 2009 through 2012. The period includes the passage of the 2010 ice island directly over the instruments.
According to Muenchow, this newest ice island will follow the path of the 2010 ice island, providing a slow-moving floating taxi for polar bears, seals and other marine life until it enters Nares Strait, the deep channel between northern Greenland and Canada, where it likely will get broken up.
This is definitely déjà vu, Muenchow says. The first large pieces of the 2010 calving arrived last summer on the shores of Newfoundland, but there are still many large pieces scattered all along eastern Canada from Lancaster Sound in the high Arctic to Labrador to the south.
Prior to 2010, the last time such a sizable ice island was born in the region was 50 years ago. In 1962, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, on the northern coast of Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada, calved a 230-square-mile island.
Article by Tracey Bryant
David Ross says:
An ice island twice the size of Manhattan has broken off from Greenlands Petermann Glacier At 46 square miles (120 square km), this latest ice island is about half the size of the mega-calving that occurred from the same glacier two years ago.
For perspective, the, later mentioned, ice island that broke free from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, in (pre-CAGW) 1962, was 230-square-miles, so equivalent to 10 Manhattans, which is still 4 Manhattans more than the 2010 and 2012 ice islands combined.
But if we took that ice and put it in a Lake Michigan amount of whiskey and vermouth and had a maraschino cherry the size of a small moon wed have a Manhattan to beat them all :)
With all that ice I wonder why the ancient northerners named it “Greenland”...
Maybe we just haven’t been around long enough to understand things.
Ok, the Norse, vikings, or whoever settled Greenland because they could start a settlement for expansion and farm. These people were there about 1000 years before it got to cold to stay.
Yea, I know it has nothing to do with the article but tonight I am irritated by anything even remotely tied to bogus global warming, which always ends with blaming man.
Enough, have a drink and go to bed!!!! its late.
Do you ever wonder why Iceland is green and Greenland is frozen,think about it.
They were lost or confused... or had visited Vinland too often.
I think I will!
“Iceland got its modern name from another visitor, the Norwegian Viking Flóki Vilgerðarson. The Landnámabók makes it clear that Flóki chose the uninviting name ísland (”ice land”) for the view of a distant fjord full of sea-ice that he glimpsed from a tall mountain. No doubt his choice was influenced by the fact that he was not at first taken with the land, and he bad-mouthed the place after his return to Norway. But eventually he changed his mind about it and moved there himself. The Landnámabók account is at odds with the common notion that Iceland was named for its glaciers, some of which are bigger than any in Europe.
You sometimes hear the story that Iceland was so named to discourage excessive immigration, but there seems to be no basis for this claim. Even if it’s true, it didn’t work very well. Between about 870 and 930, a period called the landnám, productive land in Iceland was free for the taking to all comers, and thousands of people immigrated from Norway, which was in political upheaval at the time. Landnám is usually translated “settlement,” but “land grab” is a more literal translation and comes closer to the point. Incidentally, the Irish priests disappeared around the beginning of the landnám, probably muttering to themselves, “There goes the neighborhood.”
Greenland got its name because its inhabitants sported blue-green skin from living near the sea. At least that’s what Adam of Bremen wrote (in Latin) in the eleventh century. As the old proverb says, “A fool, unless he knows Latin, is never a great fool.” I think it’s safe to say that Adam of Bremen was a great fool, at least on this point.
The real story behind the name is given in Erik the Red’s Saga, based on oral tradition and written down in the early thirteenth century in Iceland. After the Icelandic landnám was over, Erik the Red and his father Thorvald were forced to leave Norway because one or both of them was involved in killings (details are not given). After Thorvald died, Erik was involved in yet more killings, for which his punishment was three years’ vacation—er, I mean banishment from Iceland. (And you thought O. J. got off easy.)
He used the time to explore the rumored lands to the west. When his term of banishment expired, he returned to Icleand to invite his neighbors and friends to settle the new country with him. He purposely chose the pleasant name Grænland (”green land”) to attract settlers, but the choice wasn’t exactly misleading. Some parts of Greenland, especially the parts the Norse settled, really are green, as these pictures from the tourist board attest (www.greenland-guide.dk/outdoor_life_photo.htm). He may have been a killer, but at least he wasn’t a real-estate scam-artist. He didn’t have that much to gain by lying anyway, since he didn’t charge anyone for the land. As in Iceland a century before, the land was free for the taking. Natives had lived in the area in the past, but at the time of Erik’s voyage, only the northern part of Greenland was occupied by the Inuit (Eskimos).”
Here’s the source link:
Hey, wait, svcw was just thinking what to do out loud.
Don’t you wish everyone obeyed you like that, svcw :)
Thanks! I was going to do some research on the two but was too lazy and then I saw your post just what I planned on searching for. Now, can you get me my slippers and pour me a drink. :) I could get used to this!
I was actually taking to myself, but hey if people are that easily directed.....so be it.
Any relation to Mike ?
I do it myself but no one listens, I’m jealous. ;)
Ernest come back!! See, not a peep.
Or Mike sleeping it off on the shelf?
Well, I guess this means the Petermann Glacier is not such a big deal anymore!
But how could that be? Was there 'global warming' in 1962, as well? /s
The Greenland ice sheet as a whole is
shrinking, melting and reducing in size as the result of responding to globally LOCALLY changing air and ocean temperatures and associated changes in circulation patterns in both the ocean and atmosphere, he notes.
Very good posting... your #10!
I took your advice and had a drink. Actually had a few tulip glasses of wine signed off. Fired up Microsoft Flight Simulator. Loaded a mission to take off from carrier Nimitz off the Virginian Coast at Oceania NAS, flew a shorty flight plan to Willow Grove NAS in NE Philly. Landed, parked, then went to bed. Sure beats the madness on FR. :)
If you ever tasted glacier ice, you would never consider it for consumption again.
Thousands of years of capturing bird poop, dust, etc along with the snow needed to form glacier ice makes a very nasty tasting ice/water. Sadly, I know this from direct experience. My mouth is puckering up now just remembering the experience from years ago.
Yo Thack. Good points. Well taken.
I remember rafting just downstream of the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska. There were so many minerals in the water that it was liquid at 28°F. Glacier fed rivers are gray compared to the clear streams that join them. A glacier is one of the least pure natural sources of water.
I just though of something. The “taste” may be worse in Alaska. Glaciers in an area with active volcanoes are going to capture ash in that compacted snow.
If you ever get to see the front edge of a glacier on land, you might be surprised how filthy it is. Those that calve into water are not so bad, but if it completely melts down on land, the gravel, etc that was accumulated is concentrated down as much of the ice melts away. Lighter stuff was already carried away with the melting, but the leading edge is full of stuff that is harder for water to carry.
Sulfur compounds, as well. I have witnessed similar scenes in eastern states in mountainous, ski areas, where clear streams where turned to milk white, which normally where very clear say free stoners. Especially during spring melts.
Rope that calve and take it to Texas.
The Greenland ice sheet as a whole is
shrinking, melting and reducing in size as the result ofresponding to globallyLOCALLY changing air and ocean temperatures and associated changes in circulation patterns in both the ocean and atmosphere, he notes.
But got to leave again....be back much later.
.....>But got to leave again....be back much later.<
You like the beach more than you like us!! :)
Here’s something to make the day complete with some laughs!
Exactly! And GREAT POST!
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