Jump to content
  • Sign Up
×
×
  • Create New...

[NASA] Ice Island Survives Run-In With Joe Island

SpaceMan

By SpaceMan,
in World News

 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Diamond Member
SpaceMan Hunter

SpaceMan 0

Posted
  • Diamond Member
Posted
Earth Observatory
  1. This is the hidden content, please
  2. This is the hidden content, please
  3. Ice Island Survives Run-In…
 


This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

AUGUST 24
AUGUST 23

This is the hidden content, please
A satellite view shows the iceberg after it pivoted out of the fjord into Nares Strait, wedged against a small, brown island.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin

This is the hidden content, please
A satellite view shows a large tabular iceberg at the junction of its home fjord and Nares Strait.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
AUGUST 24AUGUST 23

This is the hidden content, please
A satellite view shows the iceberg after it pivoted out of the fjord into Nares Strait, wedged against a small, brown island.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
This is the hidden content, please
A satellite view shows a large tabular iceberg at the junction of its home fjord and Nares Strait.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin

AUGUST 24

AUGUST 23


CurtainToggle2-Up

Image Details

An iceberg from Petermann Glacier encounters Joe Island in northwestern Greenland, visible in images captured by the
This is the hidden content, please
 (Operational Land Imager) on
This is the hidden content, please
on August 23, 2026 (right), and August 24, 2026 (left). NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin.

Summer is prime iceberg season in Greenland’s glacier-fed fjords, and 2026 was no exception. Especially notable was the berg that broke from the Petermann Glacier along Greenland’s northwest coast in August. Roughly the size of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, it was the largest calving event by any Arctic glacier since 2020.

Iceberg calving is a routine part of an outlet glacier’s life cycle. Scientists watch the process closely, however, along with numerous other observations of the ice and its environment, for longer-term

This is the hidden content, please
. Petermann is one of Greenland’s largest marine-terminating glaciers and acts as a gatekeeper for ice flowing from the ice sheet into the ocean. Its future stability has implications for
This is the hidden content, please
.

The calving event of summer 2026 was spotted on August 4 by Adam Garbo, a doctoral student in glaciology at the University of Ottawa, in imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 mission. Garbo and an international team of colleagues have been using

This is the hidden content, please
to study and track the glacier’s ice tongue.

The team reported that the large tabular iceberg, or “ice island,” measured just over 76 square kilometers (29 square miles) at the time it calved—the largest to break from the glacier since the ice island of

This is the hidden content, please
(130 square kilometers). The 2012 calving followed earlier major events in 2008 (31 square kilometers) and
This is the hidden content, please
(just over 250 square kilometers).

The August 2026 event could have been even *******. Garbo and colleagues had been expecting a major calving once one of the large rifts they were monitoring finally cut all the way across Petermann’s ice tongue. “What surprised us was that the calving instead followed a different fracture, producing a smaller ice island than we had originally anticipated,” Garbo said. As of late August, two large rifts remained and were expected to eventually produce new ice islands of roughly 94 square kilometers and 84 square kilometers, though the timing remained uncertain.

This is the hidden content, please
August 24, 2026
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

Glaciologist Mauri Pelto of Nichols College has also been

This is the hidden content, please
, using images from NASA-USGS Landsat satellites, as it drifted down Petermann Fjord toward Nares Strait. In the week since it calved, the berg drifted an average of 3 kilometers per day. It continued toward the fjord’s junction with
This is the hidden content, please
, where it rammed into a small rocky outcrop known as Joe Island (Joe Ø). The brief encounter is visible in images captured by the
This is the hidden content, please
 (Operational Land Imager) on
This is the hidden content, please
on August 23 (top right) and August 24 (top left). A detailed view of the August 24 image is shown above.

Joe Island sits at the mouth of Petermann Fjord, making it one of the first obstacles a departing ice island meets. Collisions with it—like the one that

This is the hidden content, please
in two—often mark the start of a berg’s breakup. Petermann bergs tend to be thinner and more fragile than those calved by glaciers such as Greenland’s Jakobshavn and Helheim, and thinner still than Antarctica’s behemoths, Pelto noted.

“We were certainly watching closely as it interacted with Joe Island and were impressed that it survived the interaction without further fragmentation,” Garbo said.

The ice island was estimated to be less than 150 meters thick at the time of calving. Wind and surface currents have swept it out of the fjord, and satellite images show it

This is the hidden content, please
away from Joe Island and continuing southwest through Nares Strait. As it drifts, it will fracture into smaller pieces as tides, winds, currents, and melting continue to weaken the ice.

Thicker bergs that calve from tidewater glaciers without floating ice-shelf extensions can drag and even become grounded on the seafloor within the fjord, while ice islands, like those from Petermann, might run aground later in their drift. Many ice islands have become “grounded” off the coasts of Coburg and Baffin islands.

Garbo and colleagues noted that ice islands and their fragments have been known to travel considerable distances, posing potential hazards to marine activities and infrastructure while also distributing freshwater through the ocean as they melt.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the 

This is the hidden content, please
. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

Downloads

This is the hidden content, please

August 23, 2026

JPEG (12.59 MB)

This is the hidden content, please

August 24, 2026

JPEG (10.23 MB)

References & Resources

  • Åkesson, H., et al. (2022)
    This is the hidden content, please
    . Nature Communications, 13(2519).
  • Crawford, A. J., et al. (2016)
    This is the hidden content, please
    . Oceanography, 29(2), 254–263.
  • Eos (2011, April 5)
    This is the hidden content, please
    . Accessed August 28, 2026.
  • The European Space Agency (2026, August 21)
    This is the hidden content, please
    . Accessed August 28, 2026.
  • Fahrner, D., et al. (2026)
    This is the hidden content, please
    . Science Advances, 12(33).
  • From a Glaciers Perspective (2026, August 17)
    This is the hidden content, please
    . Accessed August 28, 2026.
  • NASA Earth Observatory (2023, May 20)
    This is the hidden content, please
    . Accessed August 28, 2026.
  • NASA Earth Observatory (2012, August 2)
    This is the hidden content, please
    . Accessed August 28, 2026.
  • NASA Earth Observatory (2010, August 10)
    This is the hidden content, please
    . Accessed August 28, 2026.
  • uOttawa (2026, August 7)
    This is the hidden content, please
    . Accessed August 28, 2026.

You may also be interested in:

Stay up-to-date with the latest content from NASA as we explore the universe and discover more about our home planet.

This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

5 min read

Scientists relied on satellite data to understand how the Antarctic glacier lost so much ice so rapidly.

Article
This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

4 min read

One narrowing icefall remains the linchpin for the Alpine glacier—and it may not be long for this world.

Article
This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

4 min read

A large iceberg, observed in summer 2026, had drifted more than 1,000 kilometers south from the northeastern Greenland bay where…

Article

This is the hidden content, please

0

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Vote for the server

    To vote for this server you must login.

    Jim Carrey Flirting GIF

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

Important Information

Privacy Notice: We utilize cookies to optimize your browsing experience and analyze website traffic. By consenting, you acknowledge and agree to our Cookie Policy, ensuring your privacy preferences are respected.

  I accept