In Twillingate, I signed on with Mr. Boyd, who runs a 28-foot, 12-passenger aluminum boat named the Silver Bullet, which he deftly maneuvered into close enough range that we could see the turquoise underbelly of a tabular iceberg. The white above-water mass was laced with lines of a rich royal-blue color, which were essentially narrow channels cut by melting water. (Similar channels in some algae-heavy icebergs make them look for all the world like giant green-striped peppermints, but most have hues of blue.)
Here, by the way, is as good a place as any to include the caveat that what I saw was only — and I’m sorry I have no more creative way to say it, which is why I waited — the tip of the icebergs.
Normally, what you and I see of any given iceberg above the surface of the water is only 10 to 12 percent of its total mass, explained Stephen E. Bruneau, an ice expert at Newfoundland’s Memorial University and author of the super-definitive book, “A Field Guide to Icebergs of Newfoundland and Labrador.”
Mr. Bruneau has advised companies on how to lasso and tow icebergs, generally in a bid to redirect them away from hitting oil rigs or fishing equipment. He also entertains a few calls every year from people who want to know whether they could solve chronic fresh water shortage problems by towing giant icebergs to, say, Saudi Arabia or Southern California.
“That’s crazy — it makes absolutely no economic sense to do that,” Mr. Bruneau told me. “I mean, in theory, it might be possible. But the fuel costs alone would pay for a desalination plant.”
The other question Mr. Bruneau gets, much more frequently, is how climate change and warmer global temperatures will affect the icebergs in Iceberg Alley. This turns out to be a rather complex issue, with so many factors at work in any given year that no one really knows the answer. Higher temperatures could well trigger more and bigger icebergs, but also accelerate the pace of their melting, he explained.
