AUG 7
A giant sheet of ice totaling 260 square kilometers (100 square miles) has broken off an ice shelf in Greenland. While the country has experienced massive glacial loss due to melting in recent decades, experts say it is unclear if this particular glacial event is connected to climate change.
The Canadian Ice Service, a federal agency that monitors ice hazards in the Northwest Passage and other summer shipping routes in northern Canadian waters, issued alerts last year about another massive "ice island" from Greenland -a 29-square-kilometre monolith that broke away in 2008 from the Petermann Glacier on the island's northwest coast -as it floated south toward Canada's Arctic shores.
Officials were concerned at the time about the potential risk to cruise and cargo ships, but the Petermann Ice Island eventually eroded and broke into smaller pieces along the coast of Baffin Island.
The collapse of several Arctic ice shelves in recent years has kept the Canadian Ice Service on alert for possible threats to ships and oil exploration activity.
Of more concern to shoppers...wheat prices are soaring. The big heat wave in Russia is cutting into the wheat crop over there. Flooding in Canadian wheat fields may also be a contributing factor. More global warming???
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2010/08/massive_iceberg_breaks_off_gre.html
Researchers say a floating ice sheet more than four times the size of New York's Manhattan Island could eventually enter shipping lanes or run into oil platforms while drifting south.
That would be a big headache for the shipping and oil industries which are based off Canada's east coast.
"There's a chance larger chunks will come down into shipping lanes and towards the oil platforms," Wohlleben said. "If they are too big, then towing and waterbomber techniques to break up the iceberg will be much more difficult to apply."
"Most of Greenland is lost as a result of melting. With respect to Petermann, experts estimate 80 percent is lost by melting and less than 20 percent by calving," said the geologist. He added that it is possible that the increased melting may have caused increased calving.
A giant sheet of ice totaling 260 square kilometers (100 square miles) has broken off an ice shelf in Greenland. While the country has experienced massive glacial loss due to melting in recent decades, experts say it is unclear if this particular glacial event is connected to climate change.
The Canadian Ice Service, a federal agency that monitors ice hazards in the Northwest Passage and other summer shipping routes in northern Canadian waters, issued alerts last year about another massive "ice island" from Greenland -a 29-square-kilometre monolith that broke away in 2008 from the Petermann Glacier on the island's northwest coast -as it floated south toward Canada's Arctic shores.
Officials were concerned at the time about the potential risk to cruise and cargo ships, but the Petermann Ice Island eventually eroded and broke into smaller pieces along the coast of Baffin Island.
The collapse of several Arctic ice shelves in recent years has kept the Canadian Ice Service on alert for possible threats to ships and oil exploration activity.
Of more concern to shoppers...wheat prices are soaring. The big heat wave in Russia is cutting into the wheat crop over there. Flooding in Canadian wheat fields may also be a contributing factor. More global warming???
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2010/08/massive_iceberg_breaks_off_gre.html
Researchers say a floating ice sheet more than four times the size of New York's Manhattan Island could eventually enter shipping lanes or run into oil platforms while drifting south.
That would be a big headache for the shipping and oil industries which are based off Canada's east coast.
"There's a chance larger chunks will come down into shipping lanes and towards the oil platforms," Wohlleben said. "If they are too big, then towing and waterbomber techniques to break up the iceberg will be much more difficult to apply."
"Most of Greenland is lost as a result of melting. With respect to Petermann, experts estimate 80 percent is lost by melting and less than 20 percent by calving," said the geologist. He added that it is possible that the increased melting may have caused increased calving.