(Image source: ABCNet/Nasa )

 

BY KERRY LEARY
ANCHOR JIM FLINK

An iceberg twice the size of Manhattan is sparking a debate over global warming. Here’s CBS.

“NASA has released satellite pictures of a giant iceberg breaking away from a glacier in Greenland. The pictures taken this week show a huge ice shell cracking and breaking up.”

An ice sheet covers four-fifths of Greenland. The large iceberg broke off of Petermann Glacier which is mostly on land, but one segment sticks out over the ocean and that’s where the break happened.

This is the second major break for the Petermann Glacier in the last three years. The first break happened in August 2010 and was more than double the size of the glacier that broke off Monday. A reporter for CBC reports:

“It’s the water temperature that has an impact on the glacier and they can't get under the ice sheet to measure but they imagine warming qualities are circulating, causing things to break up.”

The Washington Post reports air temperatures in the Greenland region have warmed more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1987 which is five times faster than the rest of the world. A writer for Planet Save notes this could be the beginning of a domino effect.

“This ... is just another knock on the door, another call to wake up and get to work, to provide a future for one’s kids and grandkids that does not equal suffering through hell on earth, extreme natural disasters, and famine.”

But David Letterman isn’t taking the iceberg too seriously, noting Greenland is about 2,000 miles away from the United States.

“... It's headed our way so, at a quarter mile an hour it should be here next year around Labor Day ... run for your lives, everybody!”

Scientists predict the movement of the huge iceberg into open water won’t have an impact on sea levels because this ice was already part of an ice shelf extended over water.