Iceberg, Dead Ahead!
Some pretty spectacular icebergs here off the coast of Greenland. Some of the larger ones are at least 5 miles across.
Thanks: Juha Vierinen
Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.
14 Responses to 'Iceberg, Dead Ahead!' 
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Well, they [I]are[/I] pretty big, but keep in mind that compiling these photos onto a world map stretched the pictures of the extreme north and south latitudes. They aren’t quite as big as the picture shows them to be.
Just to the east of this view is the US Air Force Base at Thule, Greenland:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
Regarding my previous post, here is a closer view from wikipedia.
The flat-topped hill to the right supposedly has a rough golf course on top, according to my brother-in-law who is base commander.
Luke, thanks for the help getting that link up. BTW the photo at wikipedia, taken in July 2005, does not show the huge icebergs of the Google image. Does that much ice melt down in the summer? I’ll have to check with my contact at Thule.
My question is, why does the surrounding landscape look green in the sattellite picture? I mean, if there are no icebergs in the sea in Pierre’s link, this is probably a warm part of the year, but the ground still is white.
All the photos I have received show virtually no vegetation at all in this area – and that was in July 2004! Perhaps the Google image is some kind of false color rendering. My sister has sent me one image of a small yellow flower, but the most of the ground is just dirt and rock (unless glacier covered).
Its moldy, there alot of green mold in greenland… hince the name. duh!
Erik the Red named Greenland to encourage settlers to leave iceland (where he was tossed out of). He lead 25 ships of settlers and ruled the first colony on Greenland.
Interesting article: http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/faq532.html
IMHO, those are not icebergs. It’s more like ice field that is breaking up. I don’t know if “ice field” is the correct term for french “banquise”, (very) large flat ice chunks that floats on the water, home of the polar bear. I think another term could be ice-barrier… anyway, something like that : http://www.futura-sciences.com/img/Banquise.jpg or that : http://www.capitainedepeche.com/ROTY/ice23.jpg
D’you think these are icebergs?
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
They look like they’re breaking off of a glacier.
OK, here’s one final post for me about the “icebergs” from an expert who spent a long time at the Thule AFB:
“Greenland is a giant island surrounded by sea water. During the summer the sea ice melts/breaks-up and is blown away from the land. The ice cap melts and forms rivers of water that feed the glaciers and the river/glacier move towards the sea. They break off and once in the water the chunks become the icebergs. They flow freely out to sea until the fall when everything freezes in place. The glaciers stop moving, any icebergs not long gone and stuck in place until the next summer, because the sea ice freezes and the icebergs can’t move. Then the cycle starts again.”
So the really large masses of ice are not really icebergs but more like Nicolas described.
Greenland got me thinking that it’s too bad that we can’t see Hans Island, which also got me thinking, too bad we can’t see Rockall!
Does anyone have a clue what’s this large yellow half-buried rectangle amidst the pristine white snow?
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
All my googling attempts failed to dredge up any answers.
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
The above link shows a spot in far northern Canada where Google caught some ice in the midst of breaking up and if you drag the map downwards, you can see even more of the same going on to the North.