ESA has a short movie of the calving – worth a look, Anthony
From the European Space Agency: Greenland glacier gives birth to giant iceberg
Envisat has been observing a rare event in the Arctic since early August – a giant iceberg breaking off the Petermann glacier in North-West Greenland.
The Petermann glacier is one of the largest glaciers connecting the Greenland inland ice sheet with the Arctic Ocean. Upon reaching the sea, a number of these large outlet glaciers extend into the water with a floating ‘ice tongue’.
The ice tongue of the Petermann glacier was the largest in Greenland, with an extension of about 70 km until early August. This tide-water glacier regularly advances towards the ocean at about 1 km per year. 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.
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. Such a process of detachment, called ‘calving’, occurs regularly on the Petermann glacier, with smaller calving events in summer 2008 and 2009. However large calving events are rare, with the last such significant event being documented in 1991 by ESA’s ERS-1 satellite.
The animation [below] was created by combining three Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) acquisitions (31 July, 4 August and 7 August 2010) taken over the same area. The breaking of the glacier tongue and the movement of the iceberg can be clearly seen in this sequence.
HI-RES GIF (Size: 1820 kb)The detached iceberg is now about 30 km by 14 km in size with an area of about 245 sq km. It is floating away from Petermann glacier and will enter into the Nares Strait, which separates Greenland from the Ellesmere Island in Canada.
The Nares Strait connects the Lincoln Sea and Arctic Ocean with the Baffin Bay. The strait is usually navigable by icebreakers during August/September, when sea ice extent is at its minimum after the summer melt period. Envisat ASAR images will be used in the coming days to monitor the movement of the giant iceberg in support of icebreaker navigation.
The radar imaging system used by Envisat and other satellites is particularly suited to observe polar areas, as it can acquire images through cloud or fog, and night and day.
Why is it that everybody wants to explain to me how it is in their mind that winds can always blow away from Greenland; without running our of air; but in their explanation they are forced to introduce some other source of air from some other place that is blowing IN towards Greenland. That’s WHY Greenland doesn’t run out of air; because there is just as much air flowing into it as is flowing out of it (on average of course).
This isn’t Rocket science; it’s common sense; and giving the wind out some fancy name doesn’t alter the simple 8th grade science fact that air must be flowing in as well as out or else it either runs out of air; or gathers up all the available air to sit on top of Greenland.
Did you suddenly tap into another population of WUWT readers Anthony; this is getting totally weird !
I can sympathize with George; I’ve had two-dimensional episodes, too. You just need to catch a few z’s and the x and y fall into place.
On another note, stuff falls off the end of glaciers regardless of whether they’re advancing or retreating.
“”” Oliver Ramsay says:
August 10, 2010 at 4:44 pm
I can sympathize with George; I’ve had two-dimensional episodes, too. You just need to catch a few z’s and the x and y fall into place.
On another note, stuff falls off the end of glaciers regardless of whether they’re advancing or retreating. “””
So we have some endless source of air that is directly above Greenland, that can keep supplying a downdraft to spill out over the edges.. I don’t remember restricting the altitude of winds to just the surface; we don’t restrict ocean current to just the surface, so the gulf stream can continue to our into the arctic ocean, without it all piling up there.
George,
Well, yes, there is an endless supply of air to all locations in the atmosphere. After all, if there were an end, there’d be a vacuum and we don’t think that happens.
If air is arriving from Iceland, horizontally at 20,000 feet, we would call that air movement ‘upper level wind’ or ‘winds aloft.’ When this air moves down towards the surface of Greenland it is not typically known as a descending wind. In the context of propulsion of ice chunks floating in surface water, the winds at 20,000 feet probably exert very little direct influence.
More AP alarmist drivel:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100810/ap_on_sc/eu_ice_island
Well I guess I’ll have to be happy with all the air rushing outwards from Greenland to go somewhere else. Evidently it is getting replaced by snow and ice that must come straight down from heaven; since there aren’t any inward blowing winds to bring moisture in from over the oceans or other lands.
By the way Anthony; the IceCapage is pretty cool; which is a good way for ice to be. Pretty soon WUWT is going to become the most cited data reference in future Climate science Peer Reviewed Papers.
I’ve even noticed that some of the more famous yet incognito AGW denizons from “Real Climate” seem to be coming over here to comment now and then.
That’s good because while they remain at RC they can hardly change their views, and continue to get printed.
And finally; at least some of that Icecapage data seems to be trying its darnedest to back up what Steve Goddard has been risking his neck for. Sept 2010 looks like it is going to be another teaching moment.
More alarmist rubbish, it’s floating already!!!
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/huge-rise-in-sea-levels-forecast-if-global-warming-ignored-20100811-11zqc.html?autostart=1
This morning I came across a very interesting graph (below) from one Richard Alley, a Penn State colleague of Michael Mann. Richard Alley has just testified to Congress with the outrageous testimony that Greenland could melt in decades.
What’s amazing is that this graph I mention is also by Richard Alley from 10 years prior and appears to undermine his own scaremongering! The graph shows that warmer temps bring more snowfall in Greenland, hence presumably offsetting any ice loss due to warming:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
from webpage:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.html
My own blog post on it here.
Does anybody know if this is big enough or will be sitting deep enough in the water to get jammed in the Nares Strait?
HR;
Yes, that’s a point, isn’t it? Only 10% or so is visible, above the surface. That’s one humongous underwater mass moving along there …