Rink Isbrae is ranked 2nd or 3rd for iceberg production for all west Greenland (Weidick and Bennicke, 2007).
ASTER 3D view of Rink Isbrae.
There have been no major front position change in the past 9 summers imaged by MODIS, see figure below. A 10 sq. km ice area loss in 2004 was built up in previous years and is followed by subsequent net build up.
Rink sheds 1+ km long ~0.5 km wide “ice islands” periodically.
Ingia has built up a longer floating tongue that was lost in 2007. The building accelerated before breakup.
The Zachariæ and the “79N” glacier to its north, are two massive outlets draining the gradually-sloping northeast Greenland ice sheet. An annotated image (below) illustrates a 23 sq. km (9 sq. mi.) retreat of Zachariæ Isstrøm from the end of summer 2007 to end of summer 2008.
The trend in ice loss is visible since MODIS observations began in 2000, see below…
Thinning has been observed near the grounding line since 1999 [1].
Lakes form here in northeast Greenland and may play an important role in future disintegration of this glacier, provided that warming continues, as predicted. View an animation of 2008 melt lake formation in northeast Greenland.
MODIS image showing the 79 N glacier outlet and supra-glacial melt lakes in the north east region of Greenland.
Figures:
Animations:
Works Cited
1. Eric Rignot, Sivaprasad Gogineni, Ian Joughin, Wiliam Krabil, Contribution to the glaciology of northern Greenland from satellite radar interferometry, Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 106, no. D24, Pages 34,007-34,019, December 27, 2001
A large piece (55 km x 36 km) of sea ice broke away from land at 79˚N, 15˚W, 193 km (120 mi.) from the edge of the 79 N glacier in Northeast Greenland 16-20 June, 2008. The breakup was preceded by a 4 day period of fracturing before completely disinetgrating 20 June, 2008.
Images of the breakup were gathered from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.
The recent shelf ice breakup will not raise sea level rise as the ice is already afloat. Loss of land-connected (land-fast) ice can reduce back-stress on glaciers, leading to their acceleration, e.g. Scambos et al 2002.
Satellite images indicate that the ice shelf break off began its collapse 16 June; data reveled a large ice plate, 84 km x 40 km (52.2 x 24.9 mi.), triggering disintegration of 2539 sq. km (1578 mi.). The city of Columbus, Ohio would fit in the shallow tabular “ice island” four times.
Another large tabular ice berg, (76 km X 23 km), seperated from Skærfjorden at 77˚N, 18˚W, 117 miles southwest of the Zachariæ Isstrøm on 4 July, 2008.
The 2970 km^2 (1875 mi^2) area superceeds that of the previous event from 20 June, 2008. Similarly, the mass is shelf ice…
The shelf ice in this region has deteriorated in each year from year 2000 to present. Large shelf ice break-offs such of this magnitude are becoming increasingly common in the Northeast region. Over the past 8 melt seasons there have been cases of significant shelf ice loss greater than 1700 km^2 on a year by year basis. Comparing the images on 4 July and 6 July we have an area deformation of 2970km^2. In relation to Columbus, Oh, this glacier change would fit into the metropolitan area of Columbus twice.
The animation below is a three day period where the event is taking place east of the fjord.
On 18 July, 2007 Modis Satillite imagry (shown above) reported a large (63.5 km X 25.4 km) sea ice breakoff at 79.6˚N, 17˚W. It is located 278km (173 mi) from the middle of the of the 79 fjord in Northeast Greenland.
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On 13 July 13, a small tabular piece of sea ice broke free after a region of melt below Store Koldewey disintegrated. The tabluar piece [size km^2] headed Northwest from 12 July to 18 July and collided with another region of sea ice in Dove Bugt (Dove Bay). The collision triggered the continuous breakup in the bay following 18 July, taking 4 days for the sea ice to break up completely.
In the figure and animation below we show the collision of sea ice that occured south of Store Koldewey between 13 July and 24 July of 2008. The region of interest is located 1,914km (1189 mi) south east of Zachariæ Isstrøm.
