A giant iceberg off the coast of Ilulissat, Greenland, dramatically flipped over on July 25, creating large waves and drawing global attention after the rare event was captured on video.
The footage recorded by AfarTV’s high definition livestream camera near the entrance to the UNESCO World Heritage listed Ilulissat Icefjord, shows the enormous iceberg performing a full rotation, or “somersault,” as its balance shifted.
According to AfarTV, large icebergs often become trapped or grounded near the mouth of the Ilulissat Icefjord, where they gradually melt and fracture into smaller pieces before drifting into Disko Bay. It is not known when this particular iceberg originally broke away from the glacier.
Greenland, the world’s largest island, is covered by an ice sheet spanning about 80 percent of its land area, making it one of only two major ice sheets on Earth, alongside Antarctica. Scientists estimate that Greenland loses an average of around 261 gigatonnes of ice every year due to climate change, contributing significantly to global sea level rise.
The dramatic iceberg flip highlights the immense scale and changing nature of Greenland’s ice landscape as rising global temperatures continue to accelerate melting across the Arctic.