Large Calving Event at Helheim Glacier, Greenland

Description

Greenland's glaciers are huge. How huge?  Many are several kilometres across. This video is a series of timelapse images of a large iceberg breaking off Helheim Glacier into the sea.

Shared by: Timothy James, @arctic_mit

Location: Helheim Glacier

Captured: 12/07/2010

Curator's comment:

A brilliant demonstration of how glaciers contribute to sea-level rise, and the shear scale of this iceberg calving event is astonishing!

The edge of the glacier is 100 m high (as high as Big Ben or St Paul's Cathedral) and 4 km wide (the length of Heathrow Airport or the Severn Bridge Crossing).

You can see why a calving event of this size produced an earthquake, recorded by seismic stations around the world.

A great fascinator video to begin lessons on the effects of climate change!