Could a giant iceberg really break off Greenland? Scientists check Tom Cruise’s new movie Digger
NEWS | 03 October 2026
In the movie, a giant iceberg from Greenland floats into the sea, imperiling millions—but is that even possible? I agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American Inc. Privacy Policy . We leverage third party services to both verify and deliver email. By providing your email address, you also consent to having the email address shared with third parties for those purposes. In Tom Cruise’s new movie Digger, the actor plays a crazed oil baron whose irresponsible drilling causes a massive iceberg to split off Greenland. Named Judy by climate scientists in the movie, the marauding ice barrels toward Europe, imperiling lives—but real climate scientists say this may be a little more fantastical than what we’d see if such an event really happened. In the movie, Judy threatens to bring a tsunami to Norway. The plot point is dramatic, but it misunderstands how ice shelves work, says Nils Bochow, a climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Potsdam, Germany. Ice shelves are already floating on the water, so “if [icebergs] break off, nothing much happens because they don't cause any change in sea level.” Icebergs can make waves if they break off ice shelves or glaciers, but these are typically confined to a range of a few kilometers (one km is 0.6 mile), Borchow says. “And they’re also moving very, very slowly. It’s not very spectacular.” On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Judy’s size is about 400 square miles—that’s likely much larger than any possible Greenland iceberg, Borchow says. For example, a recent large iceberg that broke free of Greenland’s Petermann Glacier was 29 square miles; it eventually collided with the country’s Joe Island. The largest Greenland iceberg in recent history broke off Petermann Glacier in 2010, and it was only a quarter the size of Judy. Riz Ahmed as Ganesh the climate scientist in Warner Bros. Pictures’ "Digger." © 2026 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved In Antarctica, however, icebergs much larger than Judy break off ice shelves regularly. But again, these aren’t known to cause havoc to humans on land. (They have been known to trouble penguins, though.) In fact, many of these events are a natural part of an ice shelf's life cycle rather than the result of climate change or human activity. For instance, in 2023 an iceberg 1.5 times as big as Judy broke off of Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf. It was the fourth in a succession of large calving events off Antarctica—and it wasn’t even the largest: one iceberg that broke off another Antarctic ice shelf in 2017 was about 2,240 square miles. “It’s unlikely that an iceberg would make its way to a major populated area [because icebergs] usually melt as they enter the warmer waters away from the ice sheet,” says Chris Stokes, who studies glaciers at the Durham University in England. “However, they pose a serious hazard to shipping and other maritime human activities and there may be some local impacts on coastal settlements or tourist activities near the ice sheets,” he adds. Icebergs aside, what is true is that human-driven climate change is causing ice at the planet’s poles to melt. The resulting destruction of critical ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica will raise global sea levels. Digger is, first and foremost, a parable—without spoiling the plot, its events are intentionally exaggerated to make a point about humans and climate change. But Borchow says that the movie misses one of the least recognized truths about climate change. “I think a lot of people think that [climate change] is happening very fast, but these ice sheets are very, very slow,” he says. “We see this change, but it doesn’t seem urgent to most people… But everything that we do today has an influence on the future. It’s really hard to put that in a movie.”
Author: Claire Cameron. Emma Gometz.
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