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Report from the Bering-Chuckhi area cold days still.
http://arcticspring.org/multimedia/waiting-melt
The day the ice cap died
The title of this blog post is actually the title of a piece of science fiction, a short story written by Paul Briggs. Just like a couple of weeks ago when I was asked for advice on an idea for a novel, Paul asked me for some feedback on his short story. I figured posting it here, will generate...
The link must have calved off earlier today. It is the Upernavik Glacier that I was calling attention to that has a deeper-longer valley than we knew
Jakobshavn calves a(nother) big one
Greenland glacier guardian Espen Olsen informed us a couple of days ago on the Forum that Jakobshavn Isbræ - Greenland's fastest glacier draining 6.5 % of the Greenland ice sheet - has had another big bite taken out of its southern branch recently. Espen made this animation to show the differenc...
Jakobshavn is the one glacier where the deep connection was well known. is a glacier where the deep connection was not. The width of these valleys is often deeper but also narrower than envisioned in older maps.
Jakobshavn calves a(nother) big one
Greenland glacier guardian Espen Olsen informed us a couple of days ago on the Forum that Jakobshavn Isbræ - Greenland's fastest glacier draining 6.5 % of the Greenland ice sheet - has had another big bite taken out of its southern branch recently. Espen made this animation to show the differenc...
The bottom left is an area of sea ice, so not important. This was glacier ice during my first visit to the glacier in 1985.
Jakobshavn calves a(nother) big one
Greenland glacier guardian Espen Olsen informed us a couple of days ago on the Forum that Jakobshavn Isbræ - Greenland's fastest glacier draining 6.5 % of the Greenland ice sheet - has had another big bite taken out of its southern branch recently. Espen made this animation to show the differenc...
Tenney good question the fjord does not extend below sea level more than a few kilometers under the northern branch. Whereas the southern branch remains quite deep for at least 75 km. The issues is not meltwater, but flotation. The more of the glacier that is floated by the water depth the more tidal flexure and the less of a pinning point the glacier base is. This arm will retreat toward the lip of fjord certainly but the main action is the southern arm.
Jakobshavn calves a(nother) big one
Greenland glacier guardian Espen Olsen informed us a couple of days ago on the Forum that Jakobshavn Isbræ - Greenland's fastest glacier draining 6.5 % of the Greenland ice sheet - has had another big bite taken out of its southern branch recently. Espen made this animation to show the differenc...
Nice work as always by Espen Olsen. In looking at the Landsat images more closely for the southern portion of the terminus on May 9 and june 1. It is apparent that limited transverse surface rifting is evident. This would suggest a calving event due to a bottom crevasse or a progressive number of smaller iceberg calving events in quick sequence.
Jakobshavn calves a(nother) big one
Greenland glacier guardian Espen Olsen informed us a couple of days ago on the Forum that Jakobshavn Isbræ - Greenland's fastest glacier draining 6.5 % of the Greenland ice sheet - has had another big bite taken out of its southern branch recently. Espen made this animation to show the differenc...
Another glacier in southwest Greenland that is reteating and accelerating,
Kangiata Sermia.
Miscellanea
I have collected a couple of interesting news articles and interviews over the past few weeks, and now it's time to share with those of you who haven't seen them. I'm posting what I found the most interesting excerpts, follow the links if you want to read the rest. First up, an interview on Sci...
Gerhard that is the Drygalski Ice Tongue which is fed by the David Glacier. It is not grounded but is well afloat. The tongue emerges from a deep trough with a thickness of 1200 meters. It thins as it spreads laterally and melt at the base t 500 m. This is still quite thick which gives it better stability than the Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves.
http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/landsat_drygalski_vf_4web.pdf
PIOMAS November 2013
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: Things are getting really interesting now, with volume levels back to those of 2007, slightly above t...
Pine Island Glacier releasing iceberg as of 11/11/13, open water in the two year old rift.
PIOMAS October 2013, take two
Let's do this again. I was so busy building a green roof (still not finished), and devastated every evening afterwards, that I didn't get around to updating the previous PIOMAS October 2013 blog post. Here's take two (after that you can take five) with the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as ...
Nicely done, reads like a thesis proposal. The recent cyclone has led to quite cloudy weather over nw Greenland, but lots of clear weather images from NE Greenland. Zachariae Ice Stream being one outlet with nice recent imagery including from Junea 17th, explanation at link above.
On persistent cyclones
As the persistent Arctic cyclone - or PAC-2013 - of the past couple of weeks winds down, I want to discuss what I've found on the subject in a couple of research papers. But first want to refer to two excellent blog posts from last week doing just that, on the Robertscribbler blog and FishOutofW...
Examination of 79 Glacier, Greenland posted today, including Landsat imagery from 6/17/2013. 79 Glacier
Crowd-Source Prediction of Mean September Sea Ice Extent (July update)
Each June, July and August, the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook (SIO) collects predictions for the mean extent of Arctic sea ice in September. These predictions come mainly from scientists but also some other people, drawing on a variety of modeling, statistical or subjective methods that each contributo...
Terry and Neven great idea on the collaborative. There are lots of platforms to do this. The key is to tell a good story and that means bringing the sea ice to some life. And the life on and under the sea ice into the story. And the glaciers meeting the sea ice in to the picture. If we each generate a few slides of what we do best animation etc. Those parts are the key to a good whole.
Collaborative Arctic Sea Ice Presentation Project
Last week I received an e-mail from commenter Terry Moran, also know as Twemoran or TerryM. In the past couple of weeks he has been working on a talk called The Demise of Arctic Sea Ice that he recently held for a small audience in Canada (here is the original presentation on Google Docs, and ...
Cryoconite only develops in glacier ice in the ablation zone, thus the accumulation zone and even the zone of firn will not develop these. This is largely because water drains through permeable snow and firn. Cryoconite requires long term water pooling in the small holes. In terms of expansion. This is a big region, and past observations of distribution are lacking, so it will be tough to observe. Though the albedo measurements of Box certainly suggest this could be occurring.
Greenland “snow drought” spells trouble
Hat-tip to HeisenIceBerg over on the Forum. I think most of us vividly remember last year's events on and around Greenland. It started with albedo going down considerably, causing widespread melt - at one point involving practically all of the ice sheet's surface - ending in a record mass loss...
Lewis I reviewed a paper two years ago that evaluated cryoconite in detail. They found that the organics despite making up only 5% of the dark material played an important role. Wientjes et al (2011)
Greenland “snow drought” spells trouble
Hat-tip to HeisenIceBerg over on the Forum. I think most of us vividly remember last year's events on and around Greenland. It started with albedo going down considerably, causing widespread melt - at one point involving practically all of the ice sheet's surface - ending in a record mass loss...
There is not typically much melt by May 1 and if you look at the data from the ice sheet, limited melt until the end of May. This year the sensors at the K-Transect indicate the limited melt potential as yet. This has little to do with a potential melt record. In 2012 the first appearance of a melt lake in the Russell Glacier catchment was day 150. Last year this played out further north at Sarqardliup Sermia lakes too
Greenland “snow drought” spells trouble
Hat-tip to HeisenIceBerg over on the Forum. I think most of us vividly remember last year's events on and around Greenland. It started with albedo going down considerably, causing widespread melt - at one point involving practically all of the ice sheet's surface - ending in a record mass loss...
The low Barents Sea Ice cover will continue to have an impact on Novaya Zemlya glaciers such as Krivosheina where recent retreat has freed a new island.
Looking for winter weirdness 6
I wasn't expecting another instalment in this year's series of blog posts on Winter Weirdness, extreme weather events that could be linked to the decline in Arctic sea ice. It's not even winter anymore officially. But as spring has been revoked in large parts of Europe, and the atmospheric blo...
The onset of the January SSW over Asia is depicted nicely in this animation from The Lee Side.
Looking for winter weirdness 6
I wasn't expecting another instalment in this year's series of blog posts on Winter Weirdness, extreme weather events that could be linked to the decline in Arctic sea ice. It's not even winter anymore officially. But as spring has been revoked in large parts of Europe, and the atmospheric blo...
Illusiat Fjord has an unusual amount of open water for late March.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Disko/20130321TERR.jpg
Bussemand Glacier in East Greenland retreat.
Max reached (?)
Cryosphere Today sea ice area and IJIS sea ice extent numbers are now so much below the peaks reached so far that it looks like the ice pack has reached its maximum size and will now start to get smaller as we transition from freezing season to melting season. Mind you, I called the max CT SIA t...
John: The retreat of Jakobshavn from 1851 to 1931 was quite slow compared to the current context. There is no doubt the emergence from the LIA generated widespread retreat of GIS outlet glaciers, the rate of that retreat here just pails by comparison to the current changes.
PIOMAS March 2013
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: Excellent news! The trend line has crept up some more and 2013 now has 133 km3 more ice than 2012 an...
Just returned from the Arctic Workshop and was not encouraged by the data presented. Climate Central is only a week behind your notice on fracturing ice, that why we come here first. Dexterity Fjord Icecap is losing on the ice volume battle too.
PIOMAS March 2013
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: Excellent news! The trend line has crept up some more and 2013 now has 133 km3 more ice than 2012 an...
Just published an index of the posts I have done on Greenland Glaciers , this is something I will look to update, any feedback is welcome
Arctic Sea Ice Forum
The Arctic Sea Ice Blog is close to reaching the 25,000 comments-mark. Thanks to disappearing sea ice and great interest therein the blog was off to a flying start right from the very beginning, with traffic peaking last record melting season (especially when the cyclone hit). There is a clea...
Aaron is correct water vapor is critical to melt rate. The potential impact of soot on the albedo of the accumulation zone of the GIS could be crucial. The Dark Snow Project has a finite and achievable goal of identifying this impact. This is the year to pursue this project because of the nature of the 2012 summer. I tend to think the role of soot is not as large as is more commonly cited. I look forward to knowing this answer not just thinking what it might be. Narssap Sermia has began a significant retreat in 2009.
Dark Snow Project
I've waited with this blog post to kick off a second round of donations for this worthy project, aimed at measuring the impact of changing wildfire and industrial soot levels on snow and ice reflectivity. Because of a lack of government funding Dr. Jason Box from the Byrd Polar Research Cente...
The reduction in sea ice duration and snow cover duration in Northern Greenland has impacted the Dodge and Storm Glacier's at Cape Alexander. The former is now actively calving, not the case in the past.
Arctic snow cover shows steep decline
From LiveScience: Arctic Snow Cover Shows Steep Decline The blanket of snow that covers Arctic regions for most of the year has been shrinking at an increasing pace over the past decade, researchers say. A recent study found an overall decrease in Arctic snow-cover extent (snow that covers th...
You can watch the jet stream circle the northern hemisphere over the last 5-20 days depending on what you choose in the animated program here.
Looking for winter weirdness 3
It's been a while since we had a first couple of signs of winter weirdness, back in October, when superstorm Sandy took a 90 degree left turn due to a ridge of blocking highs along southern Greenland, and some cold air spilled from the central Arctic over Europe, bringing very early snow to the ...
If you are worried about a Connection to the heart of the ice sheet look at the Zacharaiae Glacier.
The Christoffersen 2012 paper does not really conflict. That paper focuses on a single period of retreat. This is different than thinning from more subglacial melt leading to acceleration of glaciers. The mechanism is specific to one glacier and one time period. This is not a mechanism that can be used to apply to most of the retreating outlet glaciers, and thus even if true is not nearly as critical a process.
More from Greenland
Greenland's glaciers and ice sheet have become an integral part of this blog. Perhaps it should be renamed to ASIGIS blog? ;-) This clip from the Chasing Ice documentary has been doing the rounds lately. It's showing the largest iceberg calving ever filmed, with 7.4 cubic km of ice crashing off ...
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