Glasier utama di Greenland terpisah

GAMBAR menunjukkan kawasan Glasier Petermann yang retak di Greenland pada 7 Julai lalu.

WASHINGTON - Satu 'pulau ais' di barat laut Greenland, Denmark sebesar empat kali ganda daripada kawasan Manhattan di New York terbentuk selepas ia berpisah dari Glasier Petermann pada Khamis laluu

Seorang penyelidik, Andreas Muenchow dari Universiti Delaware berkata, kali terakhir kawasan Artik mengalami masalah sama adalah pada 1962.

Menurutnya, jumlah kandungan air pada 'pulau ais' itu mampu memberikan bekalan air kepada semua penduduk di AS selama 120 hari.

Dia berkata, sukar untuk menentukan sama ada ais itu terpisah disebabkan oleh faktor pemanasan global kerana rekod paras air laut di sekitar glasier hanya disimpan sejak 2003. - Agensi

Polar explorer Eric Philips looks down into one of the 'cracks' in the Petermann Glacier last year

An ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off from one of Greenland's two main glaciers, scientists have revealed.

The new ice island, which broke off on Thursday, will enter a remote place called the Nares Strait, about 620 miles south of the North Pole between Greenland and Canada.

The ice island has an area of 100 square miles (260 square km) and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State Building, said Andreas Muenchow, professor of ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware.

The giant ice island split away from the Peterman glacier in the north-western part of Greenland

Muenchow said he had expected an ice chunk to break off from the Petermann Glacier, one of the two largest remaining ones in Greenland, because it had been growing in size for seven or eight years. But he did not expect it to be so large.

'The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson Rivers flowing for more than two years,' said Muenchow, whose research in the area is supported by the National Science Foundation.

'It could also keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days.'

He said it was hard to judge whether the event occurred due to global warming because records on the sea water around the glacier have only been kept since 2003.

The flow of sea water below the glaciers is one of the main causes of ice calvings off Greenland.

Glacier threat: The Petermann Glacier by the 'heli-cam' during the summer melt last July

Danger: The ice island could fuse to land, break up into smaller pieces, or slowly move south where it may block shipping

'Nobody can claim this was caused by global warming. On the other hand nobody can claim that it wasn't,' Muenchow said.

Scientists have said the first six months of 2010 have been the hottest globally on record. 

The El Nino weather pattern has contributed to higher temperatures, but many scientists say elevated levels of man-made greenhouse gases are pushing temperatures higher.

The initial discovery of the calving was made by Trudy Wohlleben of the Canadian Ice Service.

The ice island could fuse to land, break up into smaller pieces, or slowly move south where it could block shipping, Muenchow said.

The last time such a large ice island formed was in 1962 when the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf calved an island. Smaller pieces of that chunk became lodged between real islands inside Nares Strait.  

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