A team at Ohio State University in Columbus has reported a large crack in the longest floating glacier in the Northern Hemisphere. If the crack becomes a break, 160 square kilometres will be lost from the Petermann glacier in northwestern Greenland. This would greatly exceed the glacier's last major ice loss, which saw 86 square kilometres break away in 2000–01.

Glaciologist Jason Box and his colleagues spotted the crack on 3 August. In addition, their daily checks of satellite images of Greenland's glaciers have revealed 29 square kilometres of ice loss from Petermann between 10 and 24 July.

They have also seen 10 square kilometres of ice loss since the end of the last melt season from the Jakobshavn glacier further to the south, which is the world's fastest-retreating glacier.