Iceberg Four Times Size of Manhattan May Hamper Atlantic Ships

A chunk of ice four times the size of Manhattan broke away from Greenland and may drift toward shipping lanes in the North Atlantic and off the Canadian coast, researchers said.

The 100-square mile ice island, with enough stored water to keep the Hudson River flowing for more than two years, split off from the Petermann Glacier last week, according to Andreas Muenchow, an associate professor of ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware.

The ice is the largest to detach from an Arctic glacier since 1962 and follows the six warmest months on record. Glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than predicted, accelerating their march to the sea and adding to the rising ocean levels that threaten coastal communities worldwide, according to many scientific studies.

“So far, 2010 has been the hottest year on record, and scientists agree Arctic ice is a canary in a coal mine that provides clear warnings on climate,” said U.S. Representative Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts and chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, on the panel’s website.

The ice island has been drifting in the sea lane between Canada and Greenland since Aug. 5, Muenchow said on the university’s website. It may block the channel, break into smaller pieces or hit land, he added.

Real Islands

The ice will encounter real islands in the Nares Strait and may drift along the coast of Canada’s Baffin Island toward Labrador, eventually reaching the Atlantic in about two years, Muenchow said.

The Petermann Glacier covers about 500 square miles. Researchers at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University are monitoring a rift in the ice, according to NASA. Over a two-week period last summer, the glacier lost 11 square miles, NASA said.

Natural disasters over the past few months have also pushed up the price of wheat and caused fires in Russia. Wheat has jumped 50 percent in Chicago since the start of July amid concern that a smaller harvest in Russia will reduce availability of the grain in world markets.

Moscow has been choking on smoke from forest fires and burning peat bogs since last week. The worst heat wave on record has devastated villages, forests and crops, causing the government to ban grain exports and threatening to slow Russia’s recovery after the economy shrank 7.9 percent last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy van Loon in Berlin at jvanloon@bloomberg.net; Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net.

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