I know I should be following this more closely, but there's only so much time in a day. Luckily, Lord Soth mailed me yesterday to inform me of the whereabouts of the largest remaining piece of the Petermann Glacier that broke off last year:
As Lord Soth reports:
It is now about 100 Km north of the Island of Newfoundland, Canada. I did not expect it to make it down the Labrador Coast in one piece. The coast of Labrador is full of shoals and and offshore banks that would have grounded the ice island. It is now entering a basin off the northern Newfoundland Coast, and should come to its final resting spot grounded a few miles off the northern coast of the island of Newfoundland in places like Twillingate and Fogo Island. There is a small chance of it entering Belle isle strait and enter the gulf of St. Lawrence, but that would require the perfect timing of a North Easter, but we don't usually get these in the dog days of summer.
I decided to have another round of Google, after vaguely remembering reading something about tourist excursions to see the big iceberg, and ran into this video (link) shot a month ago:
In the meantime the fjord in front of Petermann Glacier has cleared, all the sea ice is gone, so now we wait and see if another piece breaks off this year:
It seems like this could become an exotic tourist draw in Newfoundland. Boat or plane tours out to view it?
Thanks to Lord Soth & Neven for the update.
Posted by: L. Hamilton | July 24, 2011 at 16:13
Ah, reality is way ahead of me. And it's a spectacular season for icebergs off Newfoundland already.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2011/07/15/nl-iceberg-great-year-715.html
Posted by: L. Hamilton | July 24, 2011 at 16:19
Thanks for reminding me of the tourist excursions, Larry! I have added a nice video of the Berg.
Posted by: Neven | July 24, 2011 at 16:20
From Larry's link:
How I would love to taste that water! I'm a bit of a water connoisseur/nut.
Posted by: Neven | July 24, 2011 at 16:22
The piece from B that was aground on Coburg Island over winter is now drifting south and can be seen on MODIS off Devon Island.
Phil.
Posted by: me.yahoo.com/a/nSjChi4X3vr8X3DRw93GkY1.cerja.8nvWk- | July 24, 2011 at 20:07
On Lord Soth's "I did not expect it to make it down the Labrador Coast in one piece.", think to have read 1-2 weeks ago, maybe a bit longer, that the current size is about 1/4th of the original, the concerned article discussing the threat to various drilling isles in the region... a bit big to pull onto a different course, or one needs to do that for a very long time prior. If they could, tow it to Africa's Horn for the many thirsty there.
Posted by: Seke Rob | July 24, 2011 at 21:42
NASA Image of the Day, July 6th
Posted by: Neven | July 24, 2011 at 21:47
That's an impressive speed TBH and a bazillion tonnes at that.
Posted by: Seke Rob | July 24, 2011 at 22:28
Neven's was in my mind when I took this photo a week ago. Some melting arctic ice and fresh water for hot chocolate. Not sea ice thou. Tarfala Valley in Northern Sweden.
I'm not so sure if glacier water is healthy at all. Might be better bottle water from further downstream, when the stuff has gone through natural filtering processes and got some air and minerals in it.
Posted by: Janne Tuukkanen | July 24, 2011 at 23:08
On May 27 the Canadian Ice Service said
"It is possible that every iceberg along the mid and southern Labrador Coast at this time originated at one time from a Petermann fragment"
The smaller bergs are fragments coming from the larger islands.
Posted by: michael sweet | July 25, 2011 at 11:45
Cool picture, Janne!
Posted by: Neven | July 25, 2011 at 19:02
Speaking of icebergs. There is this nice iceberg tracking website.
http://www.icebergfinder.com/iceberg-map.aspx
Posted by: Yvan Dutil | July 26, 2011 at 17:44