Big chunk of Greenland ice cap breaks off into ocean
A big chunk of Greenland’s ice cap, estimated to be some 110 square kilometres, has broken off in the far north-east Arctic that scientists say is evidence of rapid climate change.
The glacier section broke off the fjord called Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden, which is roughly 80 kilometres long and 20 kilometres wide, the National Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland said Monday.
The glacier is at the end of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream, where it flows off land and into the ocean.
Annual end-of-melt-season changes for the Arctic’s largest ice shelf in Northeast Greenland are measured by optical satellite imagery, the survey known as GEUS said.
Section of Arctic's largest remaining ice shelf shatters in Greenland – evidence of rapid climate change scientists say https://t.co/C0kJXksMAK pic.twitter.com/1xkRTqGdWX
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) September 14, 2020
It shows that the area losses for the past two years each exceeded 50 square kilometres. The ice shelf has lost 160 square kilometres, an area nearly twice that of Manhattan Island, New York, since 1999.
“We should be very concerned about what appears to be progressive disintegration at the Arctic’s largest remaining ice shelf,” GEUS Professor Jason Box said.
“Another massive chunk of vital sea ice has fallen into the ocean,” said Greenpeace spokeswoman Laura Meller who is aboard the organisation’s ship Arctic Sunrise at the edge of the sea ice.
“This is yet another alarm bell being rung by the climate crisis in a rapidly heating Arctic.”
"We must turn the recovery from the pandemic into a real opportunity to build a better future."#Covid19 #ClimateEmergency #GreenRecovery @UNEP https://t.co/yVSbv4i5qO
— Greenpeace PressDesk (@greenpeacepress) September 14, 2020
Last week, Ruth Mottram, an ice scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute in Copenhagen, said, “again this year, the ice sheet has lost more ice than has been added in the form of snow”.
“What is thought-provoking is that if we … had seen this meltdown 30 years ago, we would have called it extreme. So in recent years, we have become accustomed to a high meltdown.”
In August, a study showed that Greenland lost a record amount of ice during an extra-warm 2019, with the melt massive enough to cover California in more than 1.25 metres of water.