Greenland glaciers and the 'greenhouse effect'

Glaciers are vital for Greenland?s fisheries

Accelerating ice loss from the fastest Greenland and Antarctic glaciers

[1] Ice discharge from the fastest glaciers draining the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets – Jakobshavn Isbrae (JI) and Pine Island Glacier (PIG)– continues to increase, and is now more than double that needed to balance snowfall in their catchment basins. Velocity increase probably resulted from decreased buttressing from thinning (and, for JI, breakup) of their floating ice tongues, and from...

Rapid changes in ice discharge from Greenland outlet glaciers.

Using satellite-derived surface elevation and velocity data, we found major short-term variations in recent ice discharge and mass loss at two of Greenland's largest outlet glaciers. Their combined rate of mass loss doubled in less than a year in 2004 and then decreased in 2006 to near the previous rates, likely as a result of fast re-equilibration of calving-front geometry after retreat. Total...

Ice-front variation and tidewater behavior on Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq Glaciers, Greenland

[1] We used satellite images to examine the calving behavior of Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq Glaciers, Greenland, from 2001 to 2006, a period in which they retreated and sped up. These data show that many large iceberg-calving episodes coincided with teleseismically detected glacial earthquakes, suggesting that calving-related processes are the source of the seismicity. For each of several event...

Rapid submarine melting of the calving faces of West Greenland glaciers

Widespread glacier acceleration has been observed in Greenland in the past few years1–4 associated with the thinning of the lower reaches of the glaciers as they terminate in the ocean5–7. These glaciers thin both at the surface, from warm air temperatures, and along their submerged faces in contact with warm ocean waters8. Little is known about the rates of submarine melting9–11 and how they m...