Images taken by the Envisat satellite show a massive iceberg breaking off the Petermann glacier in Greenland to become the largest iceberg in the northern hemisphere. The break occurred in August 2010. The animated image below shows the break occurring over several days.
A year later the iceberg was still visible from space not far from it’s birthplace.
Since then, the large iceberg has broken into several smaller pieces. The piece featured here, named PIIA, is about 12 km long and 6 km wide and covers an area of around 72 sq km. [ESA]
Flying over the Petermann Ice Island
By summer of 2011 the iceberg PIIA had become a floating ice island. Melting generated lakes and rivers on it’s surface and Seals have colonized it.
Flying over Petermann Ice Island a huge Berg/glacier covered in ponds, streams, rivers and seals off the Northern peninsula coast of Newfoundland.When The island broke off from the Petermann Glacier in Greenland in 2010 it was 280 square kilometres Square. [YouTube: jsmallwood2007]
Iceberg in Summer
NASA got an image of the iceberg island in the summer of 2011 drifting south in the Laborador Sea off the coast of Newfoundland. Pretty cool to see a white island among the green forested islands.
Petermann Glacier is one of the two largest remaining glaciers in Greenland that terminate in floating shelves. The glacier connects the great Greenland ice sheet directly with the ocean. When the chunk of ice four times the size of Manhattan broke off, the Petermann Glacier lost about one-quarter of its 43-mile- (70-kilometer-) long floating ice shelf, according to researchers at the University of Delaware. [Our Amazing Planet]
Where is PIIA now?
Not sure. The last report ESA has is from summer of 2011. NASA also doesn’t have a photo of it after 2011. It must still be out there though…
What is an Iceberg
An iceberg is a large piece of ice from freshwater that has broken off from a snow-formed glacier or ice shelf and is floating in open water.[1][2] It may subsequently become frozen into pack ice. [Wikipedia: Iceberg]
What is a Glacier
A Glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation (melting and sublimation) over many years, often centuries. [Wikipedia: Glacier]
-Mike
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