Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Friday, August 22, 2008
The Petermann glacier is breaking up. An 11 square mile area of the glacier in northern Greenland broke away after July 10th and before
July 24th. The Petermann Glacier is one of Greenland’s largest glaciers.
Petermann has a floating section 10 miles wide and 50 miles long. At 500 square miles it is the longest floating glacier in the Northern Hemisphere.
A 33.5 square mile of the Petermann broke away 2000-2001, but the Byrd Polar Research Center is predicting continued disintegration and more imminent breakup in the coming year.
An already large crack is widening even more while it moves toward the calving front of the glacier. The loss could be as much as an addition 60 square miles of the Massive ice tongue or 1/3rd. “The crack is advancing to a point where a massive breakup seems imminent, in which case, the area of break-up would be 60 square miles.
Greenland’s fastest moving glacier, Jakobshavn is suddenly speeding up and has nearly doubled its ice flow from land into the ocean. Its flow has contributed to roughly 4% of the sea level increase of the 20th century.
When every dim-wit at the coffee shop argues that is glass never over-flows when the ice melts in his drink, you can remind him this ice is moving from land into the sea. His glass would overflow if he added ice to it from his refrigerator.
Researchers have found the glacier’s speeding up is also coinciding with the very rapid thinning of the ice. It’s loosing as much a 49 feet of thickness per year since 1997.
The glaciers ice-tongue, which began to break apart in 2000, had a restraining effect on the ice behind it. As it thins and breaks it opens a path for even yet more ice to pile into the ocean.
Waleed Abdalati, a senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center says, “…We think there is a dynamic effect in which the glaciers are accelerating due to warming.” They believe the thinning of ice is too much to be attributed to melting alone.
Photo Thanks: Waleed Abdalati, GSFC
NASA MODIS
Byrd Polar Research Center
Labels: Glacier, Greenland, Jakobshavn, NASA, Petermann, Sea level
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Sea level rise already increasing as glaciers melt faster than
