Glaciers are losers

In his latest piece on the Hot Topic blog, On Fire Inside a Snowball, Gareth Renowden points us to this other blog from the Byrd Polar Research Center blog called MODIS studies of Greenland.

But first let's have a look what that big tabular ice berg, aka Lockerby Ice Island, that broke off of the ice tongue of Petermann Glacier last week has been up to so far:

Slowly rotating, slowly moving forward, slowly wiggling its way out of the fjord. Or will it get grounded in shallow waters after all?

Update August 16th: Added day 228. The ice island is rotating some more. Must be some hefty winds over there.

Update August 18th: Added day 229, and removed the first two images (from the break-up which can be watched here) to make the image file a bit smaller.

Update August 19th: Added days 230 and 231, made the animation a bit smaller to save space. Fascinating stuff.

Update August 21st: Added days 232 and 233. Lockerby Ice Island seems to be stuck, but a few more days are needed to confirm.

Either way, as noted by Jason Box from the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University: "Petermann Glacier is not the only major 'loser' in Greenland'. It can clearly be seen on this graph:

 

The front areas at Jakobshavn glacier, the world’s overall fastest glacier, and at 79 N glacier, are not losing area in 2010. Jakobshavn area changes are probably less indicative of its stability because the ice is moving so fast it just jams into it’s ice-choked fjord resulting in growth of the front area. Jakobshavn remains flowing ~2x faster than it was prior to the loss of it’s ice shelf 1997-2003. Ian Howat has likened this glacier to a fire hose spewing about as fast as it can.
The 79 N and Zacharaiae glaciers are outlets to the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream. The northeast ice stream has not accelerated much. If surface climate is any indicator (J. Box is convinced it is), the lesser warming rates in northeast Greenland may partly explain the relative stability.

Read the entire blog post and another one below it with lots of information on last week's calving event HERE.

Comments

[Andrew Xnn]

So, the Petermann berg (or whatever it's called) has moved several miles/km in the past week.

Are the winds mostly out of the north or are they pushing it?
There can't be much of a water flow current in the fjord or at least not enough to counteract winds going the opposite direction.

[Neven]

Good questions, Andrew. I think the wind is blowing from the North. The poor b(u)oy that was hurled to and fro in and out of Nares Strait is now going south very fast. In fact it was stuck in the Petermann Fjord 10 days ago. Perhaps those northerly winds were the final straw for the ice tongue.

I refer to the iceberg as Lockerby Island. :-)

[FrankD]

The Petermann Ice Island (but I like Lockerby Island better too) is fishtailing down the fjord at an average of 1 km per day. Its been swinging from side to side (Day 225->226, clockwise, Day 226->227 anticlockwise), but I couldn't tell you why at this stage. As it collides with the edges of the fjord it seems to be getting more and more heavily damaged. At that rate, if it does get stuck, it will get properly into Nares Strait at about the same time as the freeze up starts - so it will probably surve till next year.

But yes, the prevailing ice movement is very fast movement down Nares Strait - a couple of floes have been moving 30+ kms per day over the last couple of days.

[FrankD]

D'oh....that should read "doesn't get stuck...." and "survive until next year".

Note to self - preview, then post....

BTW, that rapid southward displacement can also be seen in the NWP where a large floe that broke free of Byam Martin Channel a while back is now zipping down M'Clintock Channel at a similar speed.

[Neven]

Note to self - preview, then post....

I'm sorry, Frank. This version of TypePad doesn't have many features (like edit buttons). Yeah, I'm a cheap guy.

[logicman]

FrankD: 'fishtailing' - excellent choice of term! Describes it to a 't'.

Neven: Lockerby Island is cool, and a bit of fun, but the official name is Petermann Ice Island (2010). It will get your blog more hits as time goes by. ;-)

I've been doing some journalistic investigation about the other side of the mirror. Big story coming soon. I guarantee that whowhat won't try to claim that he published first.

[FrankD]

> I guarantee that whowhat won't try to claim that he published first.

Sorry for being waaaay OT, but I can't help thinking of Lehrer on how a fictional Russian mathematician got the credit for solving a problem on analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidian meterization of infinitely differential Reimannian manifolds (!):

I have a friend in Minsk who has a friend in Pinsk
Whose friend in Omsk has friend in Tomsk with friend in Akhmolinsk
Whose friend in Aleksandrovsk has friend in Petropavlovsk
Whose friend somehow is solving now the problem in Dnepropetrovsk

And when his work is done, Ha ha! begins the fun
From Dnepropetrovsk to Aleksandrovsk by way of Ilyisk to Novorossisk
From Omsk to Tomsk to Pinsk to Minsk to me the news will run!
And then I write by morning, night and afternoon and very soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed
When he finds out I publish first....

Of course, the intertubes make it so much easier now...Ctrl-c, Ctrl-v....

<'/random>

[logicman]

FrankD: I used to enjoy that Tom Lehrer song back when I was a small boy in the 1950s.

Nicholai Ivanovitch Lobatchevsky was a real person:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Popular_Science_Monthly_Volume_83.djvu/386

For the inside dope:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=RNC-aj76zI4

Enjoy!

btw - OT doesn't begin until you follow the cherry-pick road to the dark side of the farce.