Headline
Huge fleet of icebergs hits North Atlantic shipping lanes
Greenland
This photo from a US Coast Guard reconnaissance aircraft shows icebergs floating near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic. Photo: AP
More than 400 icebergs have drifted into the North Atlantic shipping lanes over the past week in an unusually large swarm for this early in the season, forcing vessels to slow to a crawl or take detours of hundreds of kilometres.
Experts are attributing it to uncommonly strong counter-clockwise winds that are drawing the icebergs south, and perhaps also global warming, which is accelerating the process by which chunks of the Greenland ice sheet break off and float away.
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Greenland's ice sheet is driving global sea level rise. One section is melting 80% faster.
