An island of ice more than four times the size of Manhattan is drifting across the Arctic Ocean after breaking off from a glacier in Greenland.
Potentially in the path of this unstoppable giant are oil platforms and shipping lanes — and any collision could do untold damage. In a worst case scenario, large chunks could reach the heavily trafficked waters where another Greenland iceberg sank the Titanic in 1912.
It's been a summer of near biblical climatic havoc across the planet, with wildfires, heat and smog in Russia and killer floods in Asia. But the moment the Petermann glacier cracked last week — creating the biggest Arctic ice island in half a century — may symbolize a warming world like no other.
Photo to left is "before" shot. Photo below is "after" shot.
Here's what NASA says:
Wait, you mean - this has happened before!?!
Surely the world as we know it must have ended in 1962...
Since the "ice island" has to negotiate the channel it sits in, the Nares Strait, Baffin Bay, Davis Strait and an on-coming winter before it hits sea lanes, it isn't really "drifting across the Arctic Ocean" as reported above, now is it?
Or, for you worriers out there, "Not Yet."
On the other hand, there may be some good news:
... the iceberg may have one positive effect – as it moves on its passage along the Nares Strait researchers say it may act as a huge ice dam, creating a barrier between Canada and Greenland and preventing further ice to escape.Glass half empty? or half full?
An older post on the International Ice Patrol here. You can find the IIP website here.