Iceberg dead ahead!

Canadian and U.S. spotters are being kept busy this year by hundreds of the frozen chunks in Atlantic shipping lanes

A surge in the number of icebergs off Newfoundland has imperilled marine traffic and added work for the flight crews who monitor offshore.

About 600 icebergs are currently on the Grand Banks, roughly double the total all last year, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Two years ago, the area had virtually none.

And the “sheer number” of bergs this spring in the area near the oil rigs has left spotters “very busy,” Luc Desjardins, senior ice and iceberg forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service, said from Ottawa in a telephone interview this week.

… By the time they reach the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, the typical iceberg occupies about the same amount of space as a 15-storey building. It weighs between 100,000 and 200,000 tonnes.

Globe and Mail