If global warming is real, we're gonna need more ice cubes

Professor Andreas Muenchow, University of Delaware - The vast, flat expanse stretching into the background is the Petermann Glacier, well over one-third of which has now broken off. It connects the Greenland ice sheet to the Arctic Ocean.

Greenland glacier loses large mass of ice

By Juliet Eilperin and Jason Samenow, WashPost, Published: July 17

A chunk of ice twice the size of Manhattan has parted from Greenland’s Petermann glacier, a break researchers at the University of Delaware and Canadian Ice Service attributed to warmer ocean temperatures.

The separation along Greenland’s northwest coast, which took place Monday, represents the second major calving event for the glacier in the past three years. In August 2010, the Petermann glacier lost an area of roughly 97 square miles, compared with the 46 square miles that just split off this week.

“The Greenland ice sheet is changing rapidly before our eyes,” Muenchow said in an interview, adding that while “no individual glacier will be the canary in the coal mine” recent warming has transformed the overall ice sheet.

(More here.)