Orthographic View of Jakobshavn Calving Front: 1851 to 2010
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- Visualizations by:
- Cindy Starr
- View full credits
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.
Credits
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.
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Animators
- Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
- Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC)
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Visualizer
- Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.) [Lead]
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Scientist
- Serdar Manizade (NASA/GSFC Wallops)
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Project support
- James W. Williams (GST)
- Shiloh Heurich (GST)
Datasets used in this visualization
Landsat-7 Band Combination 3, 2, 1 (Collected with the ETM+ sensor)
Dataset can be found at: http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/about/wrs.html
See more visualizations using this data setLandsat-7 Band Combination 7, 4, 2 (Collected with the ETM+ sensor)
Landsat 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 setNote: 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.
Related pages
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ID: 10763 Produced Video
Racing off the Edge of Greenland
Read moreOnce known for its size, the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland is now studied for its speed. In 1997 Jakobshavn ended a decades-long period of stability as it began to thin, accelerate and eject ice into the sea at a rapid rate. The glacier thinned by as much as 50 feet (15 m) per year between 1997 and 2003, according to NASA laser altimetry measurements, while other Greenland glaciers were thinning by about three feet (1 m) per year. The glacier now moves at more than nine miles (15 km) per year, doubling its speed from a decade ago. The glacier's calving front has retreated more than six miles (10 km) in the past decade alone. Scientists point to several warming-related causes for the increase in speed and retreat: meltwater can trickle through cracks in the ice and lubricate the friction point between ice and bedrock, and warmer ocean waters underneath the ice shelf also cause thinning. The thinner ice shelf and meltwater reduce resistance to glacier movement. As a glaciology case study and the greatest potential contributor to sea level rise in the Northern Hemisphere, scientists will continue to watch Jakobshavn closely. ||
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