Petermann Glacier ( da, Petermann Gletsjer) is a large
glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
located in North-West
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...
to the east of
Nares Strait
, other_name =
, image = Map indicating Nares Strait.png
, alt =
, caption = Nares Strait (boxed) is between Ellesmere Island and Greenland.
, image_bathymetry =
, alt_bathymetry ...
. It connects the
Greenland ice sheet to the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
at 81°10' north latitude, near
Hans Island
Hans Island ( Inuktitut and kl, Tartupaluk, ; Inuktitut syllabics: ; da, Hans Ø; french: Île Hans) is an island in the very centre of the Kennedy Channel of Nares Strait in the high Arctic region, split between the Canadian territory of ...
.
The glacier and its fjord are named after German cartographer
August Heinrich Petermann
Augustus Heinrich Petermann (18 April 182225 September 1878) was a German cartographer.
Early years
Petermann was born in Bleicherode, Germany. When he was 14 years old he started grammar school in the nearby town of Nordhausen. His mother wa ...
.
Geography
The tidewater glacier consists of a long and wide floating ice tongue whose thickness changes from about at its grounding line to about at its front. Rough mass balance estimates using these scales suggest that about 80% of its mass is lost as basal meltwater, yet little
oceanographic
Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamic ...
data are available to connect Petermann Glacier to its
fjord
In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Förden and East Jutland Fjorde, Germany, ...
and adjacent Nares Strait. Even the sill depth and location is largely unknown as modern
soundings of the
fjord
In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Förden and East Jutland Fjorde, Germany, ...
, with its mouth located between
Cape Morton
Cape Morton ( da, Kap Morton) is a headland in North Greenland in Avannaata municipality. The cape is named after Arctic explorer William Morton, who surveyed the Nares Strait area together with Hans Hendrik in June 1854 during the Second Grin ...
and
Cape Tyson
A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck.
History
Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a Hood (headgear), hood in t ...
, are still lacking. Petermann Glacier marks the western limit of
Hall Land
Hall Land is a peninsula in far northwestern Greenland. It is a part of the Northeast Greenland National Park. Hall Land is one of the coldest places in Greenland.
History
Hall Land was named after Charles Francis Hall, leader of the 1871 Polar ...
and the eastern of
Daugaard-Jensen Land
Daugaard-Jensen Land, ( da, Daugård-Jensen Land), is a peninsula in northwestern Greenland. It is a part of the Avannaata municipality.
Daugaard-Jensen Land was named in honour of Jens Daugaard-Jensen (1871–1938), who was Inspector of Greenl ...
. The
Petermann Peninsula Petermann may refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Petermann Island
*Petermann Ranges (Antarctica)
Australia
* Petermann, Northern Territory, a locality
*Petermann Orogeny, a geological feature
*Petermann Ranges (Australia)
Greenland
*Petermann Glaci ...
flanks its northern end.
The grounding line is relatively stable with on average 470 m variation over the period 1992 to 2011. This indicates that the glacier was dynamically stable.
Satellite Imagery
A series of satellite images from 2002 through 2009 illustrate that the terminus of the glacier has advanced towards the ocean, however, several lateral rifts have developed also. The distance of this rifts or cracks back from the terminus has diminished for this time period also and may serve as a precursor to natural
ice calving from Petermann Glacier. A large chunk estimated to be calved off the glacier in August, 2010. The Danish Meteorological Institutes maintains an archive of imagery of Petermann Glacier and adjacent coastal areas of Greenland from both European and US satellites and sensors such as
Envisat,
MODIS, and
AVHRR
The Advanced Very-High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instrument is a space-borne sensor that measures the reflectance of the Earth in five spectral bands that are relatively wide by today's standards. AVHRR instruments are or have been carried b ...
.
Data from
Operation IceBridge
Operation IceBridge is an ongoing NASA mission to monitor changes in polar ice. It is an airborne follow-on mission to the ICESat satellite, continuing until after the ICESat-2 mission launch in September 2018.
Program history
From 2003 to ...
show a 750 km long subglacial
canyon running from the center of the island northward to the fjord of the Petermann Glacier. Dubbed "
Greenland Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon of Greenland is a tentative canyon of record length discovered underneath the Greenland ice sheet as reported in the journal ''Science'' on 30 August 2013 (submitted 29 April 2013), by scientists from the University of Bristol ...
" by media, the bottom is below sea level, and the canyon is likely to have influenced basal water flow from the ice sheet interior to the margin. The canyon predates ice sheet inception and has influenced basal hydrology in Greenland over past glacial cycles.
Ship-Based Science Explorations 2003-2015
The
US Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and maritime law enforcement, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...
icebreaker "
USCGC Healy
''USCGC ''Healy'' (WAGB-20)'' is the United States' largest and most technologically advanced icebreaker as well as the US Coast Guard's largest vessel. She is classified as a medium icebreaker by the Coast Guard. She is homeported in Seattle, W ...
" entered the fjord on August 11, 2003 to survey bottom topography, ocean currents, and
ocean chemistry
Marine chemistry, also known as ocean chemistry or chemical oceanography, is influenced by plate tectonics and seafloor spreading, turbidity currents, sediments, pH levels, atmospheric constituents, metamorphic activity, and ecology. The fie ...
as part of a larger program funded by the US
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
to better understand rates and mechanism by which Arctic sources of fresh water may impact the climate states of the North Atlantic. The program was continued as part of the Canadian International Polar Year projects when the CCGS Henry Larsen entered the fjord in 2007 and 2009.
In 2009, scientists aboard the
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
ship ''
Arctic Sunrise'' conducted multi-disciplinary measurements at Petermann glacier to document the anticipated detachment of a large area of the glacier to obtain insight into glacier dynamics and to highlight glacier response to ongoing Arctic climate warming ahead of the
Copenhagen summit
The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit, was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 and 18 December. The conference included the 15th session of the Conference of the Partie ...
.
During the summer of 2015, the Swedish icebreaker
Oden
is a type of nabemono (Japanese one-pot dishes), consisting of several ingredients such as boiled eggs, daikon, konjac, and processed fishcakes stewed in a light, soy-flavored dashi broth.
Oden was originally what is now commonly ca ...
served as the platform for the research carried out in the sea, on the glacier and on land. The purpose of the Swedish-American research expedition was to collect multibeam bathymetry and sub-bottom profile information along the western continental shelf of Greenland in order to characterize the shape of the seafloor and uppermost sediment properties. The main goal was to increase the understanding about potential pathways of relative warmer water influx towards Greenland's many outlet glaciers. A program involving both seismic data acquisition, multibeam mapping, coring and seismic reflection profiling was conducted in order to study the past behaviour of the Petermann Glacier.
Ice loss
In August 2010, a giant iceberg measuring broke off from the floating portion of Petermann Glacier reducing its area and volume by about 25% and 10%, respectively. Researchers from the Canadian Ice Service located the calving from
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
satellite images
Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell ima ...
taken on August 5; Patrick Lockerby re-posted cropped NASA images with interpretations on the internet the same day. It was the largest Arctic iceberg to
calve since 1962, however, it is unclear whether the event was related to
global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
or not. The
Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming of the US House of Representatives held hearings on Petermann Glacier and the Greenland icesheet within days of the 2010 break-up.
The National Ice Center named the new iceberg, the Petermann Ice Island (2010) to differentiate it from a similar calving event two years earlier which produced Petermann Ice Island (2008). That island was tracked by the
Canadian Ice Service
The Canadian Ice Service (CIS) is a division of the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC), and a branch of Canada's Department of the Environment. The CIS is the leading authority for information about ice in Canada's navigable waters. Ice affect ...
for over a year as it travelled out into
Nares Strait
, other_name =
, image = Map indicating Nares Strait.png
, alt =
, caption = Nares Strait (boxed) is between Ellesmere Island and Greenland.
, image_bathymetry =
, alt_bathymetry ...
and south through
Baffin Bay before losing contact with the remnants in
Frobisher Bay
Frobisher Bay is an inlet of the Davis Strait in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. It is located in the southeastern corner of Baffin Island. Its length is about and its width varies from about at its outlet into the Labrador Sea to ...
in July 2009.
On July 15/16 2012, a piece (about twice the area of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
),
calved from the northern tip of the glacier. A long crack at the site had been observed by NASA satellites for several years prior to the split.
Recent developments
The Peterman glacier has grown several kilometers in length since 2012. The development can be seen on NASA Satellite Imagery. In the last 8 years, the Peterman glacier has grown about 5 miles and is now approximately as long as it was in 2011.
A new crack was seen in 2017.
See also
*
List of glaciers in Greenland
This is a list of glaciers in Greenland. Details on the size and flow of some of the major Greenlandic glaciers are listed by Eric Rignot and Pannir Kanagaratnam (2006)
Ice sheets and caps
*Greenland Ice Sheet
* Christian Erichsen Ice Cap
*Flad ...
*
Retreat of glaciers since 1850
The retreat of glaciers since 1850 affects the availability of fresh water for irrigation and domestic use, mountain recreation, animals and plants that depend on glacier-melt, and, in the longer term, the level of the oceans. Deglaciation occu ...
References
External links
{{commons category
MODIS Studies of Greenlandat Byrd Polar Research Center
Satellite Imagery of Greenland from Danish Meteorological InstituteSatellite images of the Petermann glacier 2010 and 2009Video Interview 2009 on Petermann Glacier"Top of the World"Petermann Glacier
60 Minutes
''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...
July 31, 2016
Glaciers of Greenland
Articles containing video clips