{ "id": 10880, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10880/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Greenland's Vanishing Ice", "description": "The fringe of the Greenland ice sheet endures an annual freeze-and-thaw cycle. Plunging temperatures and ample snow in fall and winter replenish the massive ice sheet, which covers 80 percent of the country's landmass. Endless sun in spring and summer melt ice at the surface and the meltwater runs off through the country's rocky edges to the oceans. This kind of natural cycle allows scientists to observe the impact of climate change over time. Satellites have provided continual monitoring of Greenland's ice cover since 1979. While annual melt patterns vary greatly, three decades of data reveal trends of increasing surface melt and number of melt days, as seen in the first visualization below. The annual Greenland melt also opens a window on one of the most important aspects of science by satellite: With more than one satellite instrument measuring the melt, scientists can compare data to provide a measure of confidence in their observations. In the second visualization, watch how two different satellite datasets created almost mirror-image views of Greenland's ice melt extent in one year. || ", "release_date": "2011-12-15T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:23.047067-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 480576, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/Greenland_melt_less3_ramp_STILL2007_cover_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "Greenland_melt_less3_ramp_STILL2007_cover_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Scientists can see and fact-check from space how ice melts in Greenland each year.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 }, "main_video": null, "main_credits": { "Visualizations by": [ { "name": "Cindy Starr", "employer": "Global Science and Technology, Inc." }, { "name": "Lori Perkins", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" } ], "Scientific consulting by": [ { "name": "Dorothy Hall", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" }, { "name": "Son Nghiem", "employer": "NASA/JPL CalTech" }, { "name": "Waleed Abdalati", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" }, { "name": "Thorsten Markus", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" }, { "name": "Jay Zwally", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" }, { "name": "Lora Koenig", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" } ], "Written by": [ { "name": "Patrick Lynch", "employer": "Wyle Information Systems" } ] }, "progress": "Complete", "media_groups": [ { "id": 350393, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10880/#media_group_350393", "widget": "Basic text with HTML", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "The fringe of the Greenland ice sheet endures an annual freeze-and-thaw cycle. Plunging temperatures and ample snow in fall and winter replenish the massive ice sheet, which covers 80 percent of the country's landmass. Endless sun in spring and summer melt ice at the surface and the meltwater runs off through the country's rocky edges to the oceans. This kind of natural cycle allows scientists to observe the impact of climate change over time. Satellites have provided continual monitoring of Greenland's ice cover since 1979. While annual melt patterns vary greatly, three decades of data reveal trends of increasing surface melt and number of melt days, as seen in the first visualization below. The annual Greenland melt also opens a window on one of the most important aspects of science by satellite: With more than one satellite instrument measuring the melt, scientists can compare data to provide a measure of confidence in their observations. In the second visualization, watch how two different satellite datasets created almost mirror-image views of Greenland's ice melt extent in one year.", "items": [], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 350394, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10880/#media_group_350394", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "Scientists can see and fact-check from space how ice melts in Greenland each year.", "items": [ { "id": 325237, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480576, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/Greenland_melt_less3_ramp_STILL2007_cover_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "Greenland_melt_less3_ramp_STILL2007_cover_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Scientists can see and fact-check from space how ice melts in Greenland each year.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 325238, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480575, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/Greenland_melt_less3_ramp_STILL2007_cover_1024x576_web.png", "filename": "Greenland_melt_less3_ramp_STILL2007_cover_1024x576_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Scientists can see and fact-check from space how ice melts in Greenland each year.", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } }, { "id": 325239, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480578, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/Greenland_melt_less3_ramp_STILL2007_cover_1024x576_thm.png", "filename": "Greenland_melt_less3_ramp_STILL2007_cover_1024x576_thm.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Scientists can see and fact-check from space how ice melts in Greenland each year.", "width": 80, "height": 40, "pixels": 3200 } }, { "id": 325236, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480577, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/Greenland_melt_less3_ramp_STILL2007_cover.tif", "filename": "Greenland_melt_less3_ramp_STILL2007_cover.tif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Scientists can see and fact-check from space how ice melts in Greenland each year.", "width": 6400, "height": 3600, "pixels": 23040000 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 350395, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10880/#media_group_350395", "widget": "Video player", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "Satellite measurements of Greenland's ice cover from 1979 to 2009 reveals a trend of increased melting.", "items": [ { "id": 325244, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480583, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/GreenlandMelt_2009_wColorbar_posterframe1_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "GreenlandMelt_2009_wColorbar_posterframe1_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Satellite measurements of Greenland's ice cover from 1979 to 2009 reveals a trend of increased melting.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 325241, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480582, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/greenlandmelt-540-MASTER_high.mp4", "filename": "greenlandmelt-540-MASTER_high.mp4", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Satellite measurements of Greenland's ice cover from 1979 to 2009 reveals a trend of increased melting.", "width": 960, "height": 540, "pixels": 518400 } }, { "id": 325242, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480579, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/GreenlandMelt_2009_wDates_posterframe1.tif", "filename": "GreenlandMelt_2009_wDates_posterframe1.tif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Satellite measurements of Greenland's ice cover from 1979 to 2009 reveals a trend of increased melting.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 325243, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480580, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/frames/960x540_16x9_30p/greenlandmelt/", "filename": "greenlandmelt", "media_type": "Frames", "alt_text": "Satellite measurements of Greenland's ice cover from 1979 to 2009 reveals a trend of increased melting.", "width": 960, "height": 540, "pixels": 518400 } }, { "id": 325245, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480584, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/greenlandmelt-540-MASTER_high.webmhd.webm", "filename": "greenlandmelt-540-MASTER_high.webmhd.webm", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "Satellite measurements of Greenland's ice cover from 1979 to 2009 reveals a trend of increased melting.", "width": 960, "height": 540, "pixels": 518400 } }, { "id": 325240, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 854108, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/a010880_iPad_movie_greenlandmelt-540-MASTER/greenlandmelt-540-MASTER.m3u8", "filename": "greenlandmelt-540-MASTER.m3u8", "media_type": "File", "alt_text": "Satellite measurements of Greenland's ice cover from 1979 to 2009 reveals a trend of increased melting." } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 350396, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10880/#media_group_350396", "widget": "Video player", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "NASA's MODIS and QuikSCAT satellite data from 2007 were compared to confirm the precision of different melt observations.", "items": [ { "id": 325248, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480587, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/MODIS_QSCAT_melt_still3231_posterframe2_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "MODIS_QSCAT_melt_still3231_posterframe2_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA's MODIS and QuikSCAT satellite data from 2007 were compared to confirm the precision of different melt observations.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 325247, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480586, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/dualmelt-540-MASTER_high.mp4", "filename": "dualmelt-540-MASTER_high.mp4", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "NASA's MODIS and QuikSCAT satellite data from 2007 were compared to confirm the precision of different melt observations.", "width": 960, "height": 540, "pixels": 518400 } }, { "id": 325250, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480589, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/frames/960x540_16x9_30p/dualmelt/", "filename": "dualmelt", "media_type": "Frames", "alt_text": "NASA's MODIS and QuikSCAT satellite data from 2007 were compared to confirm the precision of different melt observations.", "width": 960, "height": 540, "pixels": 518400 } }, { "id": 325251, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480590, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/dualmelt-540-MASTER_high.webmhd.webm", "filename": "dualmelt-540-MASTER_high.webmhd.webm", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "NASA's MODIS and QuikSCAT satellite data from 2007 were compared to confirm the precision of different melt observations.", "width": 960, "height": 540, "pixels": 518400 } }, { "id": 325246, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 854109, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/a010880_iPad_movie_dualmelt-540-MASTER/dualmelt-540-MASTER.m3u8", "filename": "dualmelt-540-MASTER.m3u8", "media_type": "File", "alt_text": "NASA's MODIS and QuikSCAT satellite data from 2007 were compared to confirm the precision of different melt observations." } }, { "id": 325249, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480588, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/MODIS_QSCAT_melt_still3231_posterframe2.tif", "filename": "MODIS_QSCAT_melt_still3231_posterframe2.tif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA's MODIS and QuikSCAT satellite data from 2007 were compared to confirm the precision of different melt observations.", "width": 6400, "height": 3600, "pixels": 23040000 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 350397, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10880/#media_group_350397", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "NASA studies Greenland by plane, too: Black lines trace research flight paths from Operation IceBridge's Arctic 2010 campaign.", "items": [ { "id": 325253, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480593, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/LithoOpIceBridgeArctic1160_still1_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "LithoOpIceBridgeArctic1160_still1_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA studies Greenland by plane, too: Black lines trace research flight paths from Operation IceBridge's Arctic 2010 campaign.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 325254, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480591, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/LithoOpIceBridgeArctic1160_still1_1024x576_web.png", "filename": "LithoOpIceBridgeArctic1160_still1_1024x576_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA studies Greenland by plane, too: Black lines trace research flight paths from Operation IceBridge's Arctic 2010 campaign.", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } }, { "id": 325252, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 480592, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010880/LithoOpIceBridgeArctic1160_still1.tif", "filename": "LithoOpIceBridgeArctic1160_still1.tif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA studies Greenland by plane, too: Black lines trace research flight paths from Operation IceBridge's Arctic 2010 campaign.", "width": 5120, "height": 2880, "pixels": 14745600 } } ], "extra_data": {} } ], "studio": "gms", "funding_sources": [ "PAO" ], "credits": [ { "role": "Animator", "people": [ { "name": "Cindy Starr", "employer": "Global Science and Technology, Inc." }, { "name": "Lori Perkins", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" } ] }, { "role": "Producer", "people": [ { "name": "Jefferson Beck", "employer": "USRA" } ] }, { "role": "Scientist", "people": [ { "name": "Dorothy Hall", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" }, { "name": "Son Nghiem", "employer": "NASA/JPL CalTech" }, { "name": "Waleed Abdalati", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" }, { "name": "Thorsten Markus", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" }, { "name": "Jay Zwally", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" }, { "name": "Lora Koenig", "employer": "NASA/GSFC" } ] }, { "role": "Project support", "people": [ { "name": "John Sonntag", "employer": "EGG" } ] }, { "role": "Writer", "people": [ { "name": "Patrick Lynch", "employer": "Wyle Information Systems" } ] } ], "missions": [], "series": [], "tapes": [], "papers": [], "datasets": [], "nasa_science_categories": [ "Earth" ], "keywords": [ "App" ], "recommended_pages": [], "related": [ { "id": 3823, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3823/", "page_type": "Visualization", "title": "Operation IceBridge 2010 Arctic Flight Paths and Change in Elevation Data over Greenland", "description": "With the aircraft resources of NASA's Airborne Sciences Program, Operation IceBridge is taking to the sky to ensure a sustained, critical watch over Earth's polar regions. Flight lines (black) are shown for the 2010 campaign over Arctic sea ice and Greenland's land ice. Many flights target outlet glaciers along the coast where NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) shows significant thinning. Blue and purple colors, respectively, indicate moderate to large thinning. Gray and yellow, respectively, indicate slight to moderate thickening. Since its launch in January 2003, the ICESat elevation satellite has been measuring the change in thickness of ice sheets. This image of Greenland shows the changes in elevation over the Greenland ice sheet between 2003 and 2006. || ", "release_date": "2011-03-21T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:51.655685-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 487379, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003800/a003823/Lithoversion_greyGreenlandElevation2_web.png", "filename": "Lithoversion_greyGreenlandElevation2_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Flight lines (black) are shown for the 2010 campaign over Arctic sea ice and Greenland's land ice.Many flights target outlet glaciers along the coast where NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) shows significant thinning. Blue and purple colors, respectively, indicate moderate to large thinning.", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } }, { "id": 3738, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3738/", "page_type": "Visualization", "title": "2007 Greenland Melt Season Study", "description": "The Greenland ice sheet has been the focus of attention recently because of increasing melt in response to regional climate change. Several different remote sensing data products have been used to study surface and near-surface melt characteristics of the Greenland ice sheet for the 2007 melt season when record melt extent and runoff occurred. Here, MODIS daily land surface temperature and a special diurnal melt product, derived from QuikSCAT scatterometer data, measure the evolution of melt on the ice sheet. Although these daily products are sensitive to different geophysical features, they show excellent correspondence when surface melt is present. This animation displays these two geophysical data products of the Greenland ice sheet side-by-side, showing MODIS data on the left side and QuikSCAT data on the right. The 2007 melt season is shown twice. In the first sequence, MODIS surface temperature is compared with several categories of QuikSCAT melt between March 15th and October 13th, 2010. During this sequence, active melt detected by QuikSCAT is shown in light blue, reduced melt is medium blue, and completed melt is dark blue. For the MODIS, surface temperature is shown with the color scale — red indicates a surface temperature greater than -1 degree Celsius. As MODIS shows warmer surface temperature as the melt season progresses, QuikSCAT consistently identifies the corresponding melt.In the second sequence, the MODIS and QuikSCAT melted regions of the ice sheet were accumulated during the melt season. QuikSCAT captures melt earlier, and then melt is detected by MODIS shortly afterward at a higher spatial resolution. The final result (frame) shows the seasonal melt extent which was consistently delineated by both sensors. The cross-verification of these independent measurements, by two different instruments on different satellites, provides a higher confidence level in the melt observations, reducing the uncertainty in climate assessment of Greenland melt. || ", "release_date": "2010-07-23T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2024-10-09T15:57:02.510869-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 491157, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003700/a003738/MODIS_QSCAT_melt3.3013.jpg", "filename": "MODIS_QSCAT_melt3.3013.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "This animation shows the correspondence between the MODIS melt and the QuikSCAT melt over Greenland during 2007.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 3721, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3721/", "page_type": "Visualization", "title": "Annual Accumulated Melt over Greenland 1979 through 2009", "description": "The ice sheet melt extent is a daily (or every-other-day, prior to August, 1987) estimate of the spatial extent of wet snow on the Greenland ice sheet derived from passive microwave satellite brightness temperature characteristics. This indicator of melt on each area of the ice sheet for each day of observation is physically based on the changes in microwave emission characteristics observable in data.", "release_date": "2010-05-12T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2025-01-14T15:00:45.606493-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 492715, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003700/a003721/GreenlandMelt_Red_1080p60.1999.jpg", "filename": "GreenlandMelt_Red_1080p60.1999.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A satellite view of Greenland. The outer edges of Greenland are covered in a red overlay, and the year \"2009\" is visible at the top right of the image.", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }