Huge chunk of ice breaks off Greenland glacier
A block of ice four times the size of Manhattan has split off from a Greenland glacier and melted—an event so dramatic that it’s shocked the scientists who study the area.
Alun Hubbard of Aberystwyth University, Wales, said he was rendered “speechless” when he saw the now much smaller Petermann glacier. The break happened in 2010, but this is the first time photos have been available.
“Although I knew what to expect in terms of ice loss from satellite imagery, I was still completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the breakup, which rendered me speechless,” Hubbard said in a statement. The scientist said no similar event has happened in Greenland since recorded observations began in 1876.