For several years, scientists had been watching a long crack in the floating ice shelf of the northerly Petermann Glacier.

On Monday, NASA satellites showed it had broken completely, forming an iceberg covering 120 sq km.

The same glacier spawned an iceberg twice that size two years ago.

Researchers suspect global warming is to blame, but cannot prove it conclusively yet. Many of Greenland's southern glaciers have been melting at an unusually rapid pace.

US government scientist Ted Scambos says this break brings large ice loss much farther north.

Scientists also reported the Arctic had the largest sea ice loss on record for June.