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A block of ice has broken off the ice shelf in northeast Greenland.
The event is further proof of rapid climate change, according to experts.
– The temperature in this region has risen three degrees since 1980, climate researcher Jenny Turton tells the BBC.
A large chunk of ice has broken away from the Arctic’s largest remaining ice shelf, 79N, along the Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden in northeast Greenland.
The piece was originally 110 square miles in size, almost like two Manhattan’s. It has now been divided into an entire fleet of smaller ice blocks that together cover a larger area, which can be seen in satellite images.
“Record temperatures”
Climate experts say the event is a direct result of rising temperatures in the area.
“In 2019 and 2020, we had record temperatures in the area,” Jenny Turton, a climate researcher at Friedrich-Alexander University in Germany, told the BBC.
Already last year, the now discontinued part was severely damaged and cracked, due to unusually high temperatures. Now it has been completely released.
Marine scientists have also noted higher water temperatures, which in all likelihood means the ice is also melting from below, according to the BBC.
“79N became” the largest remaining ice shelf “recently after the Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland dropped large chunks in 2010 and 2012, says Jason Box, professor at GEUS (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland) , to the BBC.
But now the 79N has also started to fail.
Melting
In July, another large ice shelf lost a solid chunk. It was the Milne Ice Shelf on the Canadian island of Ellesmere that was affected.
80 square kilometers separated from Milne, which now only consists of 106 square kilometers.
Milne was once a huge ice cream cone. At the beginning of the 20th century, it measured thousands of square kilometers.
Photo: European Space Agency
This is how the ice block has been released from the glacier
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