An iceberg the size of Manhattan twice torn apart by one of the largest glaciers in Greenland. This reflects the recent dramatic changes to the warming of the island.
During recent years, scientists have long observed a fissure near the eastern end of the Petermann Glacier. On Monday (16/7), NASA satellites showed that the glacier had completely collapsed, dropping a chunk of ice measuring 74 square km.
A large chunk of ice covering roughly 80 percent of the surface of Greenland. Petermann glacier located mostly in the mainland to the island, but a segment appears above the frozen water such as protruding tongue, and that's where the outbreak occurred glacier.
The same glacier led to the emergence of a new iceberg twice the size of greater than two years ago. The collapse of the glaciers is bringing many changes to the attention of the researchers.
"It was very dramatic. It was very disturbing, "said Professor Andreas Muenchow from the University of Delaware, which is one of the first researchers to recognize the collapse. "We have data from 150 years ago and we see the changes that we have never seen before."
"That is one manifestation of that Greenland experienced very rapid change," he said.
The researchers suspect global warming is the cause, but still can not prove it. Create a separate glacier icebergs naturally, but the events that occurred in Petermann in the last three years is unprecedented, according to Muenchow and other scientists.
"This is not part of a natural event again," said NASA glacier expert researchers, Eric Rignot, who was in Petermann 10 years ago.
Ohio State University ice scientist, Ian Howat, said there is still a chance of it being a normal iceberg again, like a broken finger nails grow very long, but if it happens again collapse would prove that it is not natural, "We are still in research stage early and try to find out how big this problem. "
Many glaciers in southern Greenland is melting at a pace that is not fair. The ruins of the iceberg Petermann carry farther north than the previous years, said Ted Scambos, chief scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
If it continues, and more chunks of ice that collapsed Petermann, melting ice will make sea level rise. Icebergs have floated so far, so debris will not add to sea level.
Temperatures in the North and Canada Greeland into heat five times faster than the average global temperature, Muenchow said. Surface temperatures increase by about 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 30 years, said Scambos.
The new iceberg is likely to follow the trajectory of the iceberg before in 2010. Iceberg is split into several smaller icebergs in the north, then west and up in Newfoundland last year.
Glaciers are melting problem is not just happening in Greenland. Scientists this week reported that Arctic ice was recorded as having the greatest collapse in June.
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