A 3 meses para a COP 16 no México e nenhum acordo global do clima à vista. Enquanto isso, a temperatura média do planeta se eleva.
A 100-square-mile block of ice 600 feet thick has calved off one of the largest ocean-bordering glaciers in Greenland. The Arctic hasn’t lost a chunk of ice that large since 1962.
“In the early morning hours of Aug. 5, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan was born in northern Greenland,” oceanographer Andreas Muenchow of University of Delaware said in a press release Aug. 6. “The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson rivers flowing for more than two years. It could also keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days.”
Petermann Glacier is located about 600 miles south of the North Pole. Muenchow and a team of scientists have been studying it since 2003. They had been expecting the glacier to calve, but this piece is much larger than anyone had anticipated.
The glacier lost about one-quarter of its 43-mile-long floating ice-shelf.
The massive calving of the ice-shelf is likely part of a natural cycle for Petermann Glacier rather than a dramatic change that has never been seen before, Muenchow said.
“Petermann Glacier has stayed about the same size over the last century,” Muenchow said. “Well, up until yesterday.”
See Also:
- Earth From Space: Greenland Glacier Shrinks Overnight
- Stunning Views of Glaciers Seen From Space
- NASA Deploys Rubber Ducks to Track Glacier Water
- Animation of Giant Iceberg Collision as Seen From Space
- Tipping Point Not Likely for Arctic Sea Ice
Images: 1) Time-series animation based on satellite data from 31 July, 4 August, and 7 August 2010 showing the breaking of the Petermann glacier and the movement of the new iceberg towards Nares Strait/ European Space Agency. 2) Andreas Muenchow
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