Pine Island Glacier Calving (WMS)

  • Released Wednesday, March 9, 2005
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The Pine Island Glacier is the largest discharger of ice in Antarctica and the continent's fastest moving glacier. Even so, when a large crack formed across the glacier in mid 2000, it was surprising how fast the crack expanded, 15 meters per day, and how soon the resulting iceberg broke off, mid-November, 2001. This iceberg, called B-21, is 42 kilometers by 17 kilometers and contains seven years of glacier outflow released to the sea in a single event. This series of images from the MISR instrument on the Terra satellite not only shows the crack expanding and the iceberg breaking off, but the seaward moving glacial flow in the parts of the Pine Island Glacier upstream of the crack.

Breakoff of iceberg B-21 from the Pine Island glacier shown in imagery acquired by MISR

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Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Wednesday, March 9, 2005.
This page was last updated on Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 10:00 PM EST.

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Datasets used in this visualization

  • [Terra: MISR]

    ID: 115
    Sensor: MISR Dates used: 2000/09/16, 2000/11/28, 2000/12/12, 2001/01/01, 2001/01/22, 2001/02/25, 2002/090/08, /2001/10/10, 2001/10/26, 2001/11/04, 2001/11/09, 2001/11/11, 2001/11/12
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