Earth ID: 4528

Seasonal Speed Variation on Heimdal Glacier

Visualizations by Cindy Starr Released on December 12, 2016

The NASA/USGS Landsat 8 mission has allowed new views of the Earth’s glaciers. By tracking displacement of local surface features through the seasons on outlet glaciers from the large ice sheets, researchers from the University of Alaska, the University of Bristol, and the University of Colorado have been able to show that each glacier around Greenland has a unique pattern of flow variation through the seasons.

Seasonal variations, seen in this animation on the lower 25 kilometers of Heimdal Glacier in southeast Greenland, are caused by a combination of processes. For Heimdal, the largest forcing for flow variation is likely the input of increasing amounts of surface melt water through the Spring and Summer, but there is also an interplay between calving of ice from the end of the glacier, flow acceleration as shown in the animation, and thinning of the ice due to the extra stretching from the faster flow.

By measuring these changes in flow on seasonal timescales, scientists can develop a better understanding of what controls the flow of these glaciers where they meet the ocean. This understanding will improve our ability to anticipate flow responses of these systems in a warming climate.

This visualization shows the seasonal ice velocity on the Heimdal Glacier in Greenland between October 2013 and October 2016. The color of the flow vectors represent the speed of the flow, with purple representing the slow moving ice and red showing the fast ice. The color scale is displayed in the lower left corner.
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Visualization Credits

Lead Visualizer:
Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)

Visualizers:
Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)

Scientists:
Twila Moon (University of Bristol)
Mark Fahnestock (University of Alaska)

Producer:
Matthew R. Radcliff (USRA)

Technical Support:
Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.)

Project Support:
Joycelyn Thomson Jones (NASA/GSFC)
Leann Johnson (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
Eric Sokolowsky (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4528

Mission:
Landsat

Data Used:

RADARSAT-1/SAR

2000 - 2013

Credit:
Additional credit goes to Canadian Space Agency, RADARSAT International Inc.

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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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Landsat-8/Global Land Ice Velocity also referred to as: GoLIVE

Analysis - Oct. 2013 - Oct. 2016

Credit:
Mark Fahnstock (Univ. of Alaska), Twila Moon (Univ. of Bristol), Ted Scambos (Univ. of Colorado/NSIDC), Marin Klinger (Univ. of Colorado/NSIDC), Alex Gardner (JPL), Terry Haran (Univ. of Colorado/NSIDC)

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