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High Arctic Change 09

Hi Mike! I was reading your July21-23 journal. What an impressive group of pictures! Can you give us and idea about the height of the glacier we see in one of your photos? And how fast or how far has it retreated? Thanks for all the useful links you've provided too! Cheers, Lollie

Mon, 07/27/2009 - 23:52

Mike Rhinard

Hi Lollie!  Great to hear from you.  How was your trip? A little short on time right now.  We are re-fitting some gear/instruments on the boats to improve our sampling.  Hope to get out by noon if we can.
I will expand on the topics of your questions in a few later journals as I'm getting some great pics from the glacier front from the boats.
But to give you an idea, yesterday while we were getting a sediment core, a chunk of ice the size of my house broke off and fell into the water.
The glaciers we are working on are called "marine glaciers", meaning that they flow into the ocean.  They do not end on land.  In some of my pictures you can see both.  Some of the surrounding glaciers have receded back past the shoreline and are now "grounded".  They then just melt back.  A marine glacier ends as it flows into the sea, in this case the fjord.  [A fjord (fee-ord) is a glacially carved valley connected to the ocean and filled with sea water.]  In this case, the end, or front, of the glacier breaks off into the sea. When chunks of the glacier break off, this is called "calving".  And some of them are very big chunks!  The chunks that break off will float in the water and are what people know as "ice bergs".  So that's how ice bergs form.
We must keep a safe distance from the front of the glacier as these calving events come unexpectedly.  They can also cause small tsunamis, or large waves, that can tip our boat if we are too close or in the wrong position.  
So we not only are trying to collect sediment data from the fjord bottom in front of the glacier, but we must keep our eyes on the glacier and the ice bergs around us at all times to stay safe.
Another large calving event, as they are called, occured near us yesterday afternoon.  By the time we came back in for the day, the fjord was clogged with all sizes of ice bergs, bergy bits (mini ice bergs that break off of bigger ones), and brash ice (sort of like slush or it reminds me of ice in a cup of soda at a drive-in - only it's a really big cup and we're in it!).  We were amazed at how much ice had broken off.  It took us twice as long to get back in.  We have to move slow through the ice.
Ok, gotta run.  Hope that helped.  We have been working more now, so it may be a day or 2 until I put together some more journals on the glaciers, the work we're doing, and the students we are working with.  But that's all in the works.  So keep checking back.  And keep asking great questions. 
Thanks!!!
From not only the northermost community on Earth, but undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places on Earth . . . ,
Mike

Thu, 07/30/2009 - 09:14

Mike Rhinard

Lollie,
Here is a picture to help you get a feel for the height of the glaciers we are working on.  This is the glacier Kongsvegen, at the head of Kongsfjord.  We were in a boat preparing sediment traps when Julie went by, much closer to the glacier.  I snapped this picture for a great idea of the scale of it.  They were about 200 meters or so from the ice front.  About as close as you should get, in case calving occurs. We estimate the glacier to be about 60-80 meters tall from sea level.  Crazy, huh?