The Nares Strait connects the Lincoln Sea and Arctic Ocean with the Baffin Bay. It is floating away from Petermann glacier and will enter into the Nares Strait, which separates Greenland from the Ellesmere Island in Canada. The detached iceberg is now about 30 km by 14 km in size with an area of about 245 sq km.
The breaking of the glacier tongue and the movement of the iceberg can be clearly seen in this sequence. The animation was created by combining three Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) acquisitions (31 July, 4 August and 7 August 2010) taken over the same area. However large calving events are rare, with the last such significant event being documented in 1991 by ESA’s ERS-1 satellite. Such a process of detachment, called ‘calving’, occurs regularly on the Petermann glacier, with smaller calving events in summer 20. In the Envisat radar image taken on 3 August, the ice tongue was still intact but, on 4 August, a large part of the floating ice tongue was separated from the glacier, giving birth to what is currently the largest iceberg in the northern hemisphere. During the previous months, satellite images revealed that several cracks had appeared on the glacier surface,suggesting to scientists that a break-up event was imminent. This tide-water glacier regularly advances towards the ocean at about 1 km per year. The ice tongue of the Petermann glacier was the largest in Greenland, with an extension of about 70 km until early August. Upon reaching the sea, a number of these large outlet glaciers extend into the water with a floating ‘ice tongue’. The Petermann glacier is one of the largest glaciers connecting the Greenland inland ice sheet with the Arctic Ocean.
ESA has a short movie of the calving – worth a look, Anthony click to enlargeįrom the European Space Agency: Greenland glacier gives birth to giant icebergĮnvisat has been observing a rare event in the Arctic since early August – a giant iceberg breaking off the Petermann glacier in North-West Greenland.
0 kommentar(er)
