Ice islands: their presence in the North Atlantic Ocean

• Main Author: Armstrong, Tessa
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: National Research Council Canada 2008
• Subjects: iceberg; ice island; IIP; Newfoundland; Ellesmere Island; Greenland; Nares; Ice Shelves; Nares strait; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.4224/19379148; https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/eng/view/object/?id=298ae285-2c5e-4673-b22a-bada4092ab18

Ice islands are extremely large icebergs that break off the ice shelves of Ellesmere Island and the glaciers of Greenland. A percentage of the ice islands will make their way south via the Nares Strait and drift with the Labrador current off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. The content of this paper spans over a century of ice island sightings; beginning in the 1880s up until 2004. Data has been collected from numerous sources, including the historical Iceberg Sighting Database by Brian Hill, as well as PERD Iceberg Database. A total of 340 ice islands were reported within that data thus far compiled. These reports have been organized into an excel spreadsheet, consisting of detailed information for each ice island such as position, size and date. The ice island data has been plotted in a series of graphs, displaying different trends related to the position and size of ice islands. These graphs contribute to final analysis of the data as displayed by the graphs and figures.