Zachariae Isstrom ( da, Zachariae Isstrøm; Isstrøm being the Danish word for

ice stream An ice stream is a region of fast-moving ice within an ice sheet. It is a type of glacier, a body of ice that moves under its own weight. They can move upwards of a year, and can be up to in width, and hundreds of kilometers in length. They t ...

) 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

King Frederick VIII Land King Frederick VIII Land ( da, Kong Frederik VIII Land) is a major geographic division of northeastern Greenland. It extends above the Arctic Circle from 76°N to 81°N in a N/S direction along the coast of the Greenland Sea. History This vast ...

, northeast

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 ...

. This glacier was named by the

Denmark expedition The Denmark expedition ( da, Danmark-ekspeditionen), also known as the Denmark Expedition to Greenland's Northeast Coast, and as the Danmark Expedition after the ship, was an expedition to the northeast of Greenland in 1906–1908. Despite being ...

1906–08 after Georg Hugh Robert Zachariae (1850–1937), an officer of the

Danish Navy The Royal Danish Navy ( da, Søværnet) is the sea-based branch of the Danish Defence force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish territorial waters (incl. Faroe Islands and Greenland). Oth ...

Geography

It drains an area of of the

Greenland Ice Sheet The Greenland ice sheet ( da, Grønlands indlandsis, kl, Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering , roughly near 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is sometimes referred to as an ice cap, or under the term ''inland ice'', or its Danish equiva ...

with a

flux Flux describes any effect that appears to pass or travel (whether it actually moves or not) through a surface or substance. Flux is a concept in applied mathematics and vector calculus which has many applications to physics. For transport ph ...

(quantity of ice moved from the land to the sea) of per year, as calculated for 1996, increasing to in 2015. The glacier holds a 0.5-meter sea-level rise equivalent. Zachariae Isstrøm has its terminus in the northern part of

Jokel Bay Jokel Bay ( da, Jøkelbugten) is a large bay in North Eastern Greenland. The area of the bay is uninhabited. Administratively Jokel Bay and its surroundings belong to the Northeast Greenland National Park. The bay was named after an old Norse word ...

, south of

Lambert Land Lambert Land is a land area —possibly a peninsula or an island— in King Frederick VIII Land, northeastern Greenland. Administratively it belongs to the NE Greenland National Park area. Geography Lambert Land is bounded in the north by the ...

and north of Nørreland, near the

Achton Friis Islands The Achton Friis Islands ( da, Achton Friis Øer) are a group of two uninhabited islands in the Greenland Sea, Greenland. They were named by the Denmark expedition in honor of illustrator Achton Friis, one of the expedition members. Geography The ...

. It terminates into an embayment previously packed with multi-year calf ice.

Glacier retreat

Zachariae Isstrøm broke loose from a stable position in 2012 and entered a phase of accelerated retreat as predicted in 2008. From a state of approximate mass balance until 2003 it is now losing mass at about 5 Gt/yr. The ice velocity increased by 50% in 2000–2014. In 2012 it detached from a stabilizing sill and retreated rapidly along a downward-sloping, marine-based bedFast Retreat of Zachariæ Isstrøm, Northeast Greenland
/ref> with substantial calvingNASA Earth Observatory December 4, 2015
/ref>

References

External links

Radar studies velocity map 2012 version
Glaciers of Greenland {{arctic-stub

Geography

Glacier retreat

See also

References

External links