Tag: Greenland

Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier Reacts to Changing Ocean Temperatures

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NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) mission uses ships and planes to measure how ocean temperatures affect Greenland’s vast icy expanses. Jakobshavn Glacier, known in Greenlandic as Sermeq Kujalle, on Greenland’s central western side, has been one of the island’s largest contributor’s to sea level rise, losing mass at an accelerating rate.

In a new study, the OMG team found that between 2016 and 2017, Jakobshavn Glacier grew slightly and the rate of mass loss slowed down. They traced the causes of this thickening to a temporary cooling of ocean temperatures in the region.

Narrated by OMG Principal Investigator Josh Willis.
Music: Rising Tides by Rainman [PRS] Complete transcript available.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Kathryn Mersmann

Disappearing Ice

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Data may encapsulate the events of a single second or many years; it may span a small patch of Earth or entire systems of suns and planets. Visualizing data within its natural environment maximizes the potential for learning and discovery. Scientific visualization can clarify data’s relationships in time and space.

In this visualization, the issue of the declining sea ice near the North Pole is set in its natural configuration. The visualization begins by showing the dynamic beauty of the Arctic sea ice as it responds to winds and ocean currents. Research into the behavior of the Arctic sea ice for the last 30 years has led to a deeper understanding of how this ice survives from year to year. In the animation that follows, age of the sea ice is visible, showing the younger ice in darker shades of blue and the oldest ice in brighter white. An analysis of the age of the Arctic sea ice indicates that it traditionally became older while circulating in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska and was then primarily lost in the warmer regions along the eastern coast of Greenland. In recent years, however, warmer water in the Beaufort Sea, possibly from the Bering Strait, often melts away the sea ice in the summer before it can get older. This visual representation of the ice age clearly shows how the quantity of older and thicker ice has changed between 1984 and 2016.

Visualizer: Cindy Starr (lead)