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A floating " knife " of ice-skating rink in one of Greenland ’s big glacier stick out a uncollectible break in 2012 , free an icebergabout the sizing of Manhattan . Now , young chap in the glacier hint that another sizable chunk could recrudesce away ..
After a massive iceberg separate from Petermann Glacier in 2012 , the glacier ’s dull but steady impulse toward the sea accelerated ; since then , its flow rate has increased by an average of 10 per centum , according to a new study .
Greenland’s Petermann Glacier, seen here on 14 March 2025, made headlines in 2012 when a vast iceberg broke off and floated out to sea.
Should the unexampled cracks widen and fracture into an berg , the glacier ’s flow would likely speed up even more , leading to greater frosting loss . [ Photo : Giant Iceberg ’s Birth Snapped from Space ]
Petermann Glacier spans about 500 square miles ( 1,295 substantial kilometers ) in northwestern Greenland , and it is one of only three Greenland glacier with an icy " tongue , " which lolls across the fjord and into the North Sea . mensurate 9 to 12 naut mi ( 15 to 20 km ) wide and or so 44 miles ( 70 klick ) long , Petermann ’s glossa is the Northern Hemisphere ’s long floating glacier , according to theU.S. Geological Survey(USGS ) .
In 2010 , Petermann Glacier lost about 25 percent of its glossa in a unmarried happy chance . The trash island that broke off measured at least 100 square miles ( 260 satisfying km ) recollective and over 700 feet ( 213 meters ) wooden-headed — about half the stature of the Empire State Building , Live Sciencepreviously reported .
Left: ASTER satellite image of Petermann Glacier from 2012 shows the calving event. Right: Sentinel-2 image taken 7 January 2025, reveals newly developing fractures.
The 2010 incident did n’t significantly affect the glacier ’s flow . However , the 2012 breakwas another level , producing " a detectable glacier speedup , " the study authors write in the study . In 2016 , the glacier ’s flow speed was about 3,000 feet ( 1,135 m ) per year — an increase of around 10 per centum from 2011 , study carbon monoxide gas - writer Niklas Neckel , a glaciologist with the Alfred Wegener Institute , Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research ( AWI ) in Bremerhaven , Germany , said in a statement .
When the glacier flows to the ocean , the rock music walls on either side of the long tongue act as a pull and reduce its pep pill . But the shorter the tongue , the less lateral pressure and detrition there is holding the glacier back . This limits the braking effect " so that the glacier begins flow quicker , " lead study author and AWI deoxyephedrine modeller Martin Rückamp said in the statement .
Now , new crackshave late emerge in the tongue , about 8 miles ( 12 km ) from the new boundary . The computer models that certify the glacier ’s accelerated menstruum after 2012 also augur that Petermann ’s rush toward the sea will speed up if more ice breaks off it , the researchers write in the study . The resulting ice exit could make sea levels to rise .
" We ca n’t portend when Petermann Glacier will calve again , or whether a calving event would really have young along the cracks we identified in the frosting tongue , " Rückamp say . " But we can safely wear that , if it does come to a new calving effect , the tongue will retreat considerably , and the rock’n’roll ’s stabilizing effect will further decline . "
The findings were published online Jan. 11 in theJournal of Geophysical Research .
Originally published onLive Science .
