Ground-based measuring devices and aircraft radar operated in the far northeast of Greenland show how much ice the 79° N Glacier is losing.
Ground-based measuring devices and aircraft radar operated in the far northeast of Greenland show how much ice the 79° N Glacier is losing. According to measurements conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute, the thickness of the glacier has decreased by more than 160 metres since 1998. Warm ocean water flowing under the glacier tongue is melting the ice from below. High air temperatures cause lakes to form on the surface, whose water flows through huge channels in the ice into the ocean. One channel reached a height of 500 metres, while the ice above was only 190 metres thick, as a research team has now reported in the scientific journal The Cryosphere.
A rustic camp in northeast Greenland was one of the bases for deploying autonomous measuring devices with modern radar technology by helicopter in a part of the 79° N Glacier that is difficult to access. Measurement flights with the polar aircraft of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and satellite data were also incorporated into a scientific study that has now been published in the scientific journal The Cryosphere. This study examines how global warming affects the stability of a floating ice tongue. This is of great importance for the remaining ice shelves in Greenland as well as those in Antarctica, as instability of the ice shelf usually results in an acceleration of the ice flow, which would lead to a greater sea level rise.
“Since 2016, we have been using autonomous instruments to carry out radar measurements on the 79° N Glacier, from which we can determine melt and thinning rates,” says AWI glaciologist Dr Ole Zeising, the first author of the publication. “In addition, we used aircraft radar data from 1998, 2018 and 2021 showing changes in ice thickness. We were able to measure that the 79° N Glacier has changed significantly in recent decades under the influence of global warming.”
Read more at: Alfred-Wegener Institute
Ole Zeisig starting pRES (radar) measurement on 79 North Glacier. (Photo credit: Alfred Wegener Institute / Niklas Neckel)
