Greenland ’s Petermann Glacier has a giant crevasse in it , and NASA ’s cryosphere - monitoringOperation IceBridgeinitiative has photographed it for the very first time . Unlike most chilly cracks , however , this one is in a particularly weird place .
As has been soundly report on , Antarctica ’s ice cover – thanks to a salmagundi of natural process and man - made climate modification – iscracking up , but this is almost exclusivelyalong the edgesof the ice shelf string up off into the ocean . This glacier , which has been break up significantly since 2010 , has a crack cocaine exit through the midriff of it .
First spot on satellite imaging by Stef Lhermitte , an associate professor at the Netherland ’s Delft University of Technology , NASA flew its planing machine - base observatory over the appropriate coordinate and snapped a few photographs of the mammoth chasm .
Like plenty of other glaciers around the world , Petermann is dominantly an ice shelf . This entail that it ’s floating on the sea already , which means it does not like a shot bestow to ocean level rise through its annihilation . However , ice shelves help keep back landlocked internal-combustion engine sheets and glaciers , so their destruction ultimately allows these glob of frozen water to tumble into the sea .
So the fact that this hefty glacier is tearing itself apart is n’t a peculiarly good signal , and things may greatly quicken in the future . NASA has mark that it ’s pass around near another crevice – one that ’s a lot wider and longer – that ’s been trend towards its center from its eastern margin .
If the two cracks gather up , then the frosting ledge would fracture along over half of its total area . All thing look at , the future is looking grim for the venerable glacier .
Its presence in the middle of the glacier is baffling scientists who are uncertain how it formed . ordinarily , due to the action of salty , quick water chip away at the underside of a glacier , they crack towards their edges . It ’s not yet absolved why it ’s breaking up in the way it presently is .
It will take quite a major calving event , though , to match the August 2010 consequence , when the total domain of the Petermann Glacier was abbreviate by 25 per centum . This was the largest ice calving upshot the Arctic had ever see since 1962 , and the leave separate glacier was cite “ Petermann Ice Island 2010 ” . This basically served as the continuation to another island that formed back in 2008 .
artificial satellite imaging of the glass island that issue in 2010 . At the time , it was 260 straightforward kilometers ( 100 sq mi ) in size . NASA Earth Observatory
So far , it looks like we ’re headed for a Petermann Ice Island 2017 .
[ H / T : Washington Post ]
