Yikes! We’re in a race against time!
Recent satellite images suggest that land-fast sea ice breakup in Nares St and in front of Petermann Glacier may happen earlier than we arrive on site to observe the predicted glacier front disintegration.
ICE FORECASTS FOR THE EASTERN AND NORTHERN ARCTIC ISSUED BY THE NORTH AMERICAN ICE SERVICE ON 17 JUNE 2009.
Above normal temperatures were observed over all of the Eastern Arctic during the first half of June. The breakup is already well under way especially along the western shore of Greenland, in northern Baffin Bay and throughout Lancaster Sound, and Nares Strait where current ice conditions are typically seen 4 to 6 weeks later. The ice bridge atop of Lincoln Sea is still holding but pieces of coastal fast ice keep on breaking off and flushing rapidly southward. With mean temperatures already remaining above zero at Alert, the bridge could collapse any time now; all that is needed is a strong wind event. In Penny Strait, polynias have grown in size and the low ice concentrations in Cumberland Sound; there, the breakup pattern is about 2 weeks ahead of normal.
This means we likely won’t arrive in time to cruise into Nares St without ice floes to negotiate. Further, getting equipment installed in time to document predicted Petermann glacier front disintegration is threatened.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:13 am
[...] We’re heading to Petermann Glacier to install time lapse cameras before a large section of floating glacier ice breaks away. The sea ice that forms in front of the glacier and probably stabilizes it just broke away, seems 1-2 weeks earlier than normal. We should arrive on site early July, so we’re losing our race against time. [...]
August 7th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Jason
I hope you captured the calving event at Petermann. I have a beautiful series of SAR images from our European Space Agency Envisat satellite, with its all-weather ASAR sensor. Indeed, the calving appears to have taken place on 5 August, and one of the images seems to indicate waves propagating outwards from the freshly calved piece of floating ice tongue, suggesting some breakup may still be taking place.
Regards,
Mark Drinkwater
European Space Agency
August 23rd, 2010 at 5:49 am
Mark! I’m on my way to hopefully recover time lapse photos of the event. I predicted the event last year and lead Greenpeace to the area to install an array of sensors. We have 7 GPS along flow to visit; one is on the ice island! Jason