A Manhattan-sized ice island just broke free from Greenland
A 76-square-kilometer section of the Petermann Glacier in Greenland has broken off, marking the largest calving event in the Arctic since 2020. Satellite monitoring provided early warnings of the glacier's instability.
Why it matters
The event highlights the rapid and observable impacts of climate change on polar ice stability and sea-level rise.
Europe's Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission has documented a major change at Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland, where a 76 sq km section of the glacier's floating ice tongue broke away on August 4, 2026.
The break represents Petermann Glacier's largest loss of floating ice since 2012 and the biggest calving event recorded in the Arctic since 2020. It offers another striking example of how quickly conditions can shift across Earth's polar regions.
The newly formed tabular iceberg, also known as an 'ice island', is roughly the size of Manhattan and may be as much as 150 meters thick.
Radar images from Sentinel-1 taken on August 3 showed significant deterioration developing along the center of the ice tongue. Just one day later, the enormous ice island had separated from the glacier's eastern side.
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