The Spalte Glacier in northeast Greenland 

The Spalte Glacier in northeast Greenland has now disintegrated. Today’s Image of the Day from the European Space Agency features the Spalte Glacier, just as it was starting to break up into smaller icebergs and separate from the largest ice shelf in the Arctic.

The Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden Ice Shelf (79N) forms the floating front end of the Northeast Greenland ice stream. The Spalte Glacier in northeast Greenland has now disintegrated

At the point where the 79N transitions from the land to the ocean, it splits into two parts. The offshoot that runs north from the ice sheet once formed the Spalte Glacier, which has now completely disintegrated.

Spalte Glacier’s final departure from the 79N Ice Shelf comes after years of progressive ice loss as warmer temperatures have transformed the Arctic.

The image was captured on June 24, 2020 by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite.

Greenland (Greenlandic: Kalaallit Nunaat, pronounced [kalaːɬit nunaːt]; Danish:is the world’s largest island, located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. It is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and Denmark, the colonial powers, as well as the nearby island of Iceland) for more than a millennium. The majority of its residents are Inuit, whose ancestors migrated from Alaska through Northern Canada, gradually settling across the island by the 13th century.

Image Credit: ESA 

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer