The Greenland ice sheet is melting at an increasing rate, a process accelerated by glacier calving, in which huge chunks of ice break free and crash into the sea, generating large waves that push warmer water to the surface.
The Greenland ice sheet is melting at an increasing rate, a process accelerated by glacier calving, in which huge chunks of ice break free and crash into the sea, generating large waves that push warmer water to the surface. Researchers at the University of Zurich and the University of Washington have now shown that this mechanism is amplifying glacial melt.
Iceberg calving occurs when masses of ice break away from the edge of glaciers and crash into the ocean. This process is one of the major drivers of the rapid mass loss currently affecting the Greenland ice sheet. An international research team led by the University of Zurich (UZH) and the University of Washington (UW) has now used fiber-optic technology to measure for the first time how the impact of falling ice and its subsequent drift is driving the mixing of glacial melt with warmer subsurface seawater.
“The warmer water increases seawater-induced melt erosion and eats away at the base of the vertical wall of ice at the glacier’s edge. This, in turn, amplifies glacier calving and the associated mass loss from ice sheets,” says Andreas Vieli, a professor at UZH’s Department of Geography and co-author of the study. Vieli heads the Cryosphere cluster, one of six clusters in the interdisciplinary GreenFjord project in southern Greenland, supported by the Swiss Polar Institute. These new insights into the dynamics of glacier ice and seawater are featured on the cover of the latest issue of Nature.
Read More: University of Zurich
Image: View of the fjord and the three-kilometer-wide calving front of Eqalorutsit Kangilliit Sermiat in southern Greenland. The fiber-optic cable was laid a few hundred meters from the ice wall through the 300-meter-deep water on the seabed. In the foreground is the UZH radar device, which measures calving events and ice movements in order to interpret the data from the fiber-optic cable. (Image: Andreas Vieli, University of Zurich)
