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A chunk of ice four times the size of Manhattan has calved from Greenland's Petermann Glacier, scientists announced today. The last time the Arctic lost such a large chunk of ice was in 1962. "In the early morning hours of August 5, 2010, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan was born in northern Greenland," said Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware. Satellite imagery of this remote area at 81 degrees north latitude and 61 degrees west longitude, about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) south of the North Pole, reveals...

A giant sheet of ice measuring 260 sq km (100 sq miles) has broken off a glacier in Greenland, according to researchers at a US university. The block of ice separated from the Petermann Glacier, on the north-west coast of Greenland. It is the largest Arctic iceberg to calve since 1962, said Prof Andreas Muenchow of the University of Delaware. The ice could become frozen in place over winter or escape into the waters between Greenland and Canada. If the iceberg moves south, it could interfere with shipping, Prof Muenchow said. Cracks in the Petermann Glacier had been observed last...

New satellite images reveal that a massive ice chunk recently broken away from one of Greenland's glaciers, which researchers say will continue to disintegrate within the next year. Scientists at Ohio State University monitoring daily NASA satellite images of Greenland's glaciers discovered that an 11-square-mile (29-square-kilometer) piece of the Petermann Glacier broke away between July 10 and 24. The chunk was about half the size of Manhattan. They announced their finding today. Glaciers are large, slow-moving rivers of ice, formed at the poles and in alpine regions by layers of compacted snow. The Petermann Glacier is one of the approximately...