Much of glacier mass is lost via calving, occasional events when glacier fronts break and fall off to the ocean. We would like to understand the conditions under which such events occur.
We have been conducting field research at Helheim glacier and adjacent Sermilik fjord. Yearly measurements of vertical salinity, temperature and pressure profiles give us a good estimate of the fjord water structure and a weather station installed at the glacier provides us with atmospheric data. Calving events cause strong perturbations in the fjord waters, which we were able to detect and separate from other signals. We will combine this with the rest of the data and with numerical models, and we hope to develop a better insight on this phenomenon.
This FrostByte was created by Irena Vankova for the Rising Coastal Seas On A Warming Earth Workshop, 27-29 October 2014 at the New York University Campus in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
More information about this work: http://caos.cims.nyu.edu/page/home
Podcasts about the 'coolest' science on the planet - all about ice in the Arctic, Antarctic, Mountains, and elsewhere around the globe brought to you by the Climate and Cryosphere Project and the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists. For more info visit www.climate-cryosphere.org/activities/outreach/frostbytes
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