
Rapid mapping of moving Glaciers
Responsible for the 10% of Greenland icebergs, the Jakobshavn Glacier is one of the largest outlet glaciers in the world. According to recent scientific studies it is also one of the fastest moving glaciers on Earth, Its speed can in fact reach on average up to 40 meters per day.

Aerial Image of the glacier (Courtesy of EGU Media Library)
Following the global warming effects, the ice stream of the glacier has accelerated in the last years nearly doubling the ice flow from land into the Atlantic Ocean.
As such, it increased the rate of sea level rise by about 0.06 millimetres per year, or around 4% of the 20th century rate of global sea level rise.
Such extraordinary river of ice 60 Km long, can be seen in the following animation made using Copernicus Sentinel-2 images acquired in a period of only seven months, from February to September 2017. The flux of ice is continuously draining the Greenland Ice Sheet feeding the calving of dozens of icebergs inside the fjord.
Jakobshavn Glacier is also blamed for having produced the most infamous iceberg on history, the one that sank the Titanic in spring 1912.

The sinking of the Titanic depicted in the Willy Stöwer painting
Nowadays fortunately icebergs are constantly monitored and catalogued by satellite and the Copernicus Marine Service exploits both Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data images to monitor icebergs drift across the ocean in order to ensure a safe navigation along the main Atlantic routes.
You may also like
Related
Written by Sardegna Clima Onlus
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Archives
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- August 2020
- July 2020
- March 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- October 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- March 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- October 2018
- August 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- August 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
Leave a Reply