The big kahuna! The biggest event in the Arctic in nearly 50 years! An ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off from one of Greenland’s two main glaciers and it’s now drifting in a remote area called the Nares Strait between Greenland and Canada.
How should this be interpreted? Is this another demonstration of the onward march of global warming? Or is it simply a natural consequence of a series of factors at play around Greenland?
Scientists are divided. On the one hand, Jason E. Box, a glacier and climate researcher at Ohio State University, stated that the coincidence of this area loss and a 30 square kilometre loss in 2008 along with abnormal warmth this year, the setting of increasing sea surface temperatures and sea ice decline are all part of a climate warming pattern. While on the other, Andreas Muenchow, Associate Professor of Physical Ocean Science and Engineering at the University of Delaware, is more cautious about attributing the ice breakup to recent warming. He has referred to boundary layer physics, turbulence, tides, and glacier dynamics as factors relating to its occurrence.
For more detail, here's an interesting article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/07/biggest-ice-island-greenland
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