A Tour of the Cryosphere 2009
- Visualizations by:
- Alex Kekesi and
- Cindy Starr
- View full credits
This animation portrays fluctuations in the cryosphere through observations collected from a variety of satellite-based sensors. The animation begins in Antarctica, showing some unique features of the Antarctic landscape found nowhere else on earth. Ice shelves, ice streams, glaciers, and the formation of massive icebergs can be seen clearly in the flyover of the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica. A time series shows the movement of iceberg B15A, an iceberg 295 kilometers in length which broke off of the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000. Moving farther along the coastline, a time series of the Larsen ice shelf shows the collapse of over 3,200 square kilometers ice since January 2002. As we depart from the Antarctic, we see the seasonal change of sea ice and how it nearly doubles the apparent area of the continent during the winter.
From Antarctica, the animation travels over South America showing glacier locations on this mostly tropical continent. We then move further north to observe daily changes in snow cover over the North American continent. The clouds show winter storms moving across the United States and Canada, leaving trails of snow cover behind. In a close-up view of the western US, we compare the difference in land cover between two years: 2003 when the region received a normal amount of snow and 2002 when little snow was accumulated. The difference in the surrounding vegetation due to the lack of spring melt water from the mountain snow pack is evident.
As the animation moves from the western US to the Arctic region, the areas affected by permafrost are visible. As time marches forward from March to September, the daily snow and sea ice recede and reveal the vast areas of permafrost surrounding the Arctic Ocean.
The animation shows a one-year cycle of Arctic sea ice followed by the mean September minimum sea ice for each year from 1979 through 2008. The superimposed graph of the area of Arctic sea ice at this minimum clearly shows the dramatic decrease in Artic sea ice over the last few years.
While moving from the Arctic to Greenland, the animation shows the constant motion of the Arctic polar ice using daily measures of sea ice activity. Sea ice flows from the Arctic into Baffin Bay as the seasonal ice expands southward. As we draw close to the Greenland coast, the animation shows the recent changes in the Jakobshavn glacier. Although Jakobshavn receded only slightly from 1964 to 2001, the animation shows significant recession from 2001 through 2009. As the animation pulls out from Jakobshavn, the effect of the increased flow rate of Greenland costal glaciers is shown by the thinning ice shelf regions near the Greenland coast.
This animation shows a wealth of data collected from satellite observations of the cryosphere and the impact that recent cryospheric changes are making on our planet.
For more information on the data sets used in this visualization, visit NASA's EOS DAAC website.
Note: This animation is an update of the animation 'A Short Tour of the Cryosphere', which is itself an abridged version of the animation 'A Tour of the Cryosphere'. The popularity of the earlier animations and their continuing relevance prompted us to update the datasets in parts of the animation and to remake it in high definition. In certain cases, our experiences in using the earlier work have led us to tweak the presentation of some of the material to make it clearer. Our thanks to Dr. Robert Bindschadler for suggesting and supporting this remake.
The complete narrated visualization
This video is also available on our YouTube channel.
AtmosphereCopenhagenCryologyCryosphereEarth ScienceEdited FeatureFrozen GroundGlacier Motion/Ice Sheet MotionGlacier Thickness/Ice Sheet ThicknessGlacier Topography/Ice Sheet TopographyGlaciersGlaciers/Ice SheetsGOESHDTVHydrosphereHyperwallIce ExtentIce Growth/MeltIce MotionIce SheetsIce VelocityNarratedPermafrostprecipitationSea IceSea Ice ConcentrationSea ice MotionsnowSnow and IceSnow CoverSnow/IceVoice Over Talent
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
The Blue Marble Next Generation data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC) and NASA's Earth Observatory.
Historic calving front locations courtesy of Anker Weidick and Ole Bennike, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland
Animators
- Alex Kekesi (GST) [Lead]
- Eric Sokolowsky (GST)
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)
- Helen-Nicole Kostis (USRA)
- Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
- Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC)
- Marte Newcombe (GST)
- Randall Jones (GST)
- Ryan Boller (NASA/GSFC)
- Tom Bridgman (GST)
Visualizer
- Cindy Starr (GST) [Lead]
Writers
- Jarrett Cohen (GST)
- Michael Starobin (KBRwyle)
Video editor
- Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
Scientists
- Bob Bindschadler (NASA/GSFC)
- Dorothy Hall (NASA/GSFC)
- Mary Jo Brodzik (University of Colorado)
- Richard Armstrong (University of Colorado)
- Ronald Weaver (University of Colorado)
- Waleed Abdalati (University of Colorado Boulder/CIRES)
- Walt Meier (NASA/GSFC)
Narrator
- Michael Starobin (KBRwyle)
Project support
- James W. Williams (GST)
- Stuart A. Snodgrass (KBRwyle)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
QuikSCAT (Collected with the SeaWinds sensor)
SeaWinds is a scanning dual pencil-beam Ku-band scatterometer.
Dataset can be found at: http://www.mers.byu.edu/Seawinds.html
See more visualizations using this data setGOES-8 (Collected with the Imager sensor)
Terra (Collected with the MISR sensor)
Terra and Aqua True Color (A.K.A. Band Combination 1, 4, 3) (Collected with the MODIS sensor)
Terra Band Combination 3, 2, 1 (Collected with the ASTER sensor)
Dataset can be found at: http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov
See more visualizations using this data setTerra and Aqua BMNG (A.K.A. Blue Marble: Next Generation) (Collected with the MODIS sensor)
Credit: The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).
Dataset can be found at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/
See more visualizations using this data setLandsat Calving Front Line (Collected with the TM sensor)
Calving front lines derived from Landsat imagery.
See more visualizations using this data setTerra Calving Front Lines (Collected with the ASTER sensor)
Calving front lines derived from Terra/ASTER imagery.
See more visualizations using this data setCircum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground-Ice Conditions
SRTM DEM (Collected with the SIR-C sensor)
RADARSAT-1 Derived Velocities (Collected with the SAR sensor)
Credit: Additional credit goes to Canadian Space Agency, RADARSAT International Inc.
See more visualizations using this data setGridded Population of the World (Version 3 Beta)
ICESat L1B Global Elevation Data (GLA06) (Collected with the GLAS sensor)
Landsat-7 LIMA (A.K.A. Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica) (Collected with the ETM+ sensor)
Mosaicing to avoid clouds produced a high quality, nearly cloud-free benchmark data set of Antarctica for the International Polar Year from images collected primarily during 1999-2003.
Dataset can be found at: http://lima.nasa.gov/
See more visualizations using this data setAqua Sea Ice Concentration (A.K.A. Level 3 12.5 km Sea Ice Concentration) (Collected with the AMSR-E sensor)
Terra and Aqua NDVI (A.K.A. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)) (Collected with the MODIS sensor)
NSIDC SSMI-derived September Minimum Sea Ice Concentration
Date: 2004
See more visualizations using this data setRAMP DEM (A.K.A. Radarsat Antarctic Mapping Project (RAMP) Digital Elevation Model (DEM))
Terra Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG (MOD10C1) (Collected with the MODIS sensor)
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.