A 76-square-kilometer chunk of Greenland's Petermann Glacier snapped off on August 4, forming a tabular iceberg roughly the size of Manhattan and up to 150 meters thick. It is the glacier's largest calving event since 2012 and the biggest in the Arctic since 2020.
Europe's Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite had tracked the breakup coming for months: radar images from April 2026 already showed deformation and fractures spreading through the ice tongue, and by August 3 the center of the tongue was visibly deteriorating. "We've anticipated this break for years, and seeing it finally happen is remarkable," said Adam Garbo of the University of Ottawa, part of an international team with the Universities of Stirling, Lancaster and Leeds that monitored the event, partly funded through ESA's FutureEO ARCTEX project.
Scientists warn two more sizable pieces, measuring 97 and 87 square kilometers, could break away as existing rifts keep spreading. Environment and Climate Change Canada is now tracking the new ice island, which could persist for years and fragment into smaller, harder-to-detect hazards for Arctic shipping routes.