Iceberg PII-A splits in two off Newfoundland
Over a year ago, on August 5, 2010, the Petermann Glacier on the northwestern coast of Greenland calved a very large ice island. About a month later, the ice island, estimated at that time as about four times the size of Manhattan, collided with an island and broke into two smaller pieces. The larger piece, Petermann Ice Iceland A (PII-A), then drifted from Greenland through the Labrador Sea and over the next eleven months edged close to the coast of Newfoundland.
In early July, 2011, PII-A was estimated at a much reduced 62.5 square kilometers, and it had drifted to within 10 miles of the Newfoundland Coast, but images captured in mid-August showed the ice island still in one piece. Within the last four days PII-A split into two smaller pieces, which now sit south of the Grey Islands and close to the Newfoundland coast. The size of each piece has now been compared to the size of five Central Parks (which is located in Manhattan).
This true color image of the two remnant ice islands off the coast of Newfoundland was captured on August 22, 2011 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra satellite as it flew over the region. (MODIS)
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