Earth ID: 4001

Ice Flow toward the Petermann Glacier, Greenland

Visualizations by Cindy Starr Released on October 18, 2012

Greenland looks like a big pile of snow seen from space using a regular camera. But satellite radar interferometry helps us detect the motion of ice beneath the snow. Ice starts flowing from the flanks of topographic divides in the interior of the island, and increases in speed toward the coastline where it is channelized along a set of narrow, powerful outlet glaciers. In the east, these glaciers make their sinuous way through complex terrain at low speed. They form long floating extensions that deform slowly in the cold north. As we move toward sectors of higher snowfall in the northwest and centre west, ice flow speeds increase by nearly a factor 10, with many, smaller glaciers flowing straight down to the coastline at several kilometers per year.

This complete description of ice motion was only made possible from the coordinated effort of four space agencies: the Japanese Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The data will help scientists improve their understanding of the dynamics of ice in Greenland and in projecting how the Greenland Ice Sheet will respond to climate change in the decades and centuries to come.

Visualization Credits

Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Visualizer
Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Matthew R. Radcliff (USRA): Producer
Eric J. Rignot (NASA/JPL CalTech): Scientist
Jeremie Mouginot (University of California, Irvine): Scientist
Ian Howat (Ohio State University): Scientist
Ted Scambos (NSIDC): Scientist
Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Project Support
Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Project Support

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

The topographic data of Greenland is provided courtesy of Ian Howat, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.

The MOG mosaic (MODIS) is courtesy of T. Scambos, NSDIC, Bouder, CO.

Science Paper:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2012GL051634

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4001

Mission:
Terra

Data Used:

Terra and Aqua/MODIS/Blue Marble: Next Generation also referred to as: BMNG

2004

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/

Credit:
The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).

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Greenland Mapping Project (GIMP) Digital Elevation Model also referred to as: GIMP Greenland DEM

Data Compilation - Courtesy of Ian Howat, OSU - 2003-2009

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also referred to as: Digital Mosaic of Ice Motion in Greenland

Data Compilation - NASA JPL and UC, Irvine

Digital Mosaic of Ice Motion in Greenland from satellite radar interferometry data acquired during the International Polar Year 2008 to 2009 by the Envisat Advanced Synthetic-Aperture Radar (ASAR), the Advanced Land Observation System (ALOS)'s Phase-Array L-band SAR (PALSAR) and the RADARSAT-1 SAR

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also referred to as: Greenland Ice Sheet Velocity

JPL

Assembled from satellite radar interferometry data acquired during the International Polar Year (2008-2009). The satellites are Envisat Advanced Synthetic-Aperture Radar (ASAR), Advanced Land Observation System's (ALOS) Phase-Array L-band SAR (PALSAR), RADARSAT-1 SAR

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