Earth  ID: 3806

Orthographic View of Jakobshavn Calving Front: 1851 to 2010

The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, also known as Sermeq Kujalleq, is located on the west coast of Greenland at Latitude 69 degrees N. The ice front, where the glacier calves into the sea, receded more than 40 km between 1850 and 2010. Between 1850 and 1964 the ice front retreated at a steady rate of about 0.3 km/yr, after which it occupied approximately the same location until 2001, receding 10km in three years. After 2005 the single icefront had retreated enough to split into distinct fronts for the smaller, northern tributary and the main southern trunk. The icestream flows in a deep trough which ends near the current glacier terminus. The bedrock topography is expected to stabilize the location of the icefront for the near future as the glacier continues to drawn ice from Greenland's interior. The movement of ice from glaciers on land into the ocean contributes to a rise in sea level. Jakobshavn Isbrae is Greenland's largest outlet glacier, draining 6.5 percent of Greenland's ice sheet area.

This image is generated with an orthographic camera set to view the range from 51.372 W longitude to 49.212 W and from 68.94 N latitude to 69.39 N. The Landsat image shown in the background is a false color image of data collected on July 29, 2009.

 

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Visualization Credits

Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Visualizer
Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Serdar Manizade (NASA/GSFC Wallops): Scientist
James W. Williams (GST): Project Support
Shiloh Heurich (GST): Project Support
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio Historic calving front locations courtesy of Anker Weidick and Ole Bennike, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3806

Missions:
Landsat
Terra

Data Used:
Terra/ASTER/Calving Front Lines
Analysis - 2005-07-02, 2006-08-08
Calving front lines derived from Terra/ASTER imagery.
Landsat-7/ETM+/Band Combination 7, 4, 2
2009-07-29
Landsat/TM/Calving Front Line
Analysis - 2010-08-17, 2009-07-29, 2004-10-03, 2003-08-23, 2002-09-03, 2001-07-07
Calving front lines derived from Landsat imagery.
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

Keywords:
DLESE >> Cryology
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Cryosphere
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Hydrosphere >> Glaciers/Ice Sheets
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Hydrosphere >> Glaciers/Ice Sheets >> Glacier Motion/Ice Sheet Motion
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Hydrosphere >> Glaciers/Ice Sheets >> Glaciers
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Hydrosphere >> Snow/Ice >> Ice Growth/Melt
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0