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Hunter Cutting

Greenland glacier calves island 4 times the size of Manhattan - 0 views

www.udel.edu/...greenland080610.html

climate change impact ice sheet ice melt Greenland calving

shared by Hunter Cutting on 06 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Greenland glacier calves island 4 times the size of Manhattan
  • A University of Delaware researcher reports that an “ice island” four times the size of Manhattan has calved from Greenland's Petermann Glacier. The last time the Arctic lost such a large chunk of ice was in 1962.
  • “In the early morning hours of August 5, 2010, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan was born in northern Greenland,” said Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Satellite imagery of this remote area at 81 degrees N latitude and 61 degrees W longitude, about 620 miles [1,000 km] south of the North Pole, reveals that Petermann Glacier lost about one-quarter of its 43-mile long [70 km] floating ice-shel
  • The new ice island has an area of at least 100 square miles and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State Building. “The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson rivers flowing for more than two years. It could also keep all U.S. public tap water
  • The last time such a massive ice island formed was in 1962 when Ward Hunt Ice Shelf calved a 230 square-mile island, smaller pieces of which became lodged between real islands inside Nares Strait. Petermann Glacier spawned smaller ice islands in 2001 (34 square miles) and 2008 (10 square miles). In 2005, the Ayles Ice Shelf disintegrated and became an ice island (34 square miles) about 60 miles to the west of Petermann Fjord.
Hunter Cutting

Key Greenland glacier retreats in July - 0 views

voices.washingtonpost.com/..._eyeballs_glacial_melt_in.html

glacier glacial retreat ice loss Greenland climate change impact

shared by Hunter Cutting on 14 Jul 10 - Cached
  • The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, one of the largest glaciers in Greenland, swiftly lost a 2.7-square mile chunk of ice between July 6 and 7, NASA announced late last week. The ice loss pushed the point where the glacier meets the ocean, known as the "calving front," nearly one mile farther inland in a single day. According to the space agency, the new calving front location is the farthest inland on record.
  • The Jakobshavn Isbrae is what is known as an outlet glacier, which the National Snow and Ice Data Center defines as "a valley glacier which drains an inland ice sheet or ice cap and flows through a gap in peripheral mountains." In other words, it serves as a drainage pipe from the land ice into the ocean. According to NASA, the Jakobshavn Isbrae, which is located in western Greenland at about 69 degrees north latitude, is the largest outlet glacier in Greenland, draining 6.5 percent of Greenland's ice sheet area.
  • NASA reports that "as much as 10 percent of all ice lost from Greenland is coming through Jakobshavn, which is also believed to be the single largest contributor to sea level rise in the northern hemisphere."
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  • Interestingly, this particular glacier has been retreating especially rapidly in recent years. As the below image shows, the ice front receded more 27 miles in 160 years, but in recent years the ice loss rate has increased, with six miles of retreat observed in just the past decade.
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