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Petemann Glacier, the largest floating glacier in the Northern Hemisphere in the Northern Western Greenland, with its approximately 500 square miles of ice supported water beneath, is prerhaps, Greenland's most newsworthy glacier of the past year as it is the glacier that rapidly breaking up which mostly sits on water. So you have to enjoy the scenery while it hasn't changed that much.
Just like the saying goes 'Every good thing must comes to an end', it surely relates to Petermann Glacier. It goes to show Petermann glacier is just one of the glaciers that are been greatly affected by the climate changes. According to Wikipedia, Petermann Glacier is a large glacier located in North-West Greenland to the east of Nares Strait. It connects the Greenland ice sheet to the Arctic Ocean near 81 degrees north latitude. The tidewater glacier consists of a 70 km long and 15 km wide floating ice tongue whose thickness changes from about 600 m at its grounding line to about 30–80 m at its front. Rough mass balance estimates using these scales suggest that about 80% of its mass is lost as basal meltwater, yet little oceanographic data are available to connect Petermann Glacier to its fjord and adjacent Nares Strait. Even the sill depth and location is largely unknown as modern soundings of the fjord are still lacking.
Greenland Glacier (c) Doc Searls
The most dramatic picture of the glacier's ice shows the retreating up valleys, and becomes notably thinner as you move up glacier toward the grounding line. A blog author states that A massive ice island that is 25% of the formerly 43 mile long Petermann glacier and is 4 times as big as Mahattan breaks away! This is not the usual melting of the Greenland glacier but calving which took place early on 5th August morning. In fact this is the largest chunk that has broken off from the glacier since 1962.
Petermann has the largest floating ice shelf so calving of icebergs are not unusual, however, ones of this size will have a big impact. Another blog author states that This is the biggest piece of ice to break from the Arctic icecap since 1962--and it looks like the ice is heading toward the open waters of the Atlantic. According to scientists, The freshwater stored in the ice could keep the taps in the entire United States flowing for a half a year.
Wikitravel will perfectly guide you to Petermann Glacier, Greenland.
By plane
Flights to Greenland will almost always go to one of two airports: Kangerlussuaq (Danish: Søndre Strømfjord, English: Sondrestrom) or Narsarsuaq. From there local flights or boats will take you to your final destination, Scientific and technical personnel travelling from North America for research purposes typically fly into Kangerlussuaq aboard New York Air National Guard C-130s. If you are looking for the airport, the name of Greenland's airport service is Mittarfeqarfiit. Note that SAS ceased its operations to Greenland in 2009.
Air Greenland the flag carrier, has several flights per week from Copenhagen, Denmark to Kangerlussuaq on large A330 planes. Air Iceland operates year-round flights from Reykjavik to Kulusuk, Ittoqqortoormiit and Nuuk and additionally to Narsarsuaq and Ilulissat during the summer months. (Note that they use the Danish place names for some of these.) One popular day excursion is to fly from Reykjavik to Kulusuk, where traditional handicrafts are on sale, before returning to the comparative comforts of Iceland. Reykjavik has direct connections to North America, making this the shortest civilian route between North America and Greenland.
By boat
Realistically, there is no ferry service from Europe or North America.
There are cruise ships from both continents that visit Greenland:
Hurtigruten, has cruises from or to Iceland.
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