From a Glacier's Perspective

March 7, 2016

Coronation Island Glacier Retreat, South Orkney Islands

Lewis Glacier (S) and Sunshine Glacier (S) on Coronation Island in 1990 and 2015. Red arrow is 1990 terminus location and yellow arrow the 2015 terminus location. Sunshine and Lewis Glacier are tidewater glaciers on the south side of Coronation Island in the South Orkney Islands. This is an area of excessive cloud cover leading to few available satellite images illustrating glacier change. A map of the glaciers from the …

January 4, 2016

Endurance Glacier, Elephant Island Retreat

Landsat comparison from 1990 and 2015 of Endurance Glacier, Elephant Island-Embayment development east and west side of calving terminus. Endurance Glacier is the main outlet glacier of this heavily glaciated island of the South Shetland Islands. The name of the island comes from the numerous elephant seals. The name of the glacier comes from the Ernest Shackleton and his crew from the Endurance reaching the island in 1916 after a …

September 24, 2015

Pine Island Releases New Iceberg after Austral Winter 2015

NASA MODIS Image from Sept. 24, 2015 showing new iceberg at calving front of Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica In the MODIS images from the NASA Rapid Response image sets below you can see the lack of rifting in February, 2015 and April, 2015 that will lead at the calving front where the iceberg will break off that is evident on Sept. 24, 2015. A new iceberg was reported having calved …

May 17, 2015

Developing Instability of Verdi Ice Shelf, Antarctica: Extensive Rift Formation

The Verdi Ice Shelf is a small ice shelf on the Beethoven Peninsula of Alexander Island on the Antarctic Peninsula. Its small size limits its global importance, but it does provide an excellent example of the rapid development of rifting that indicates potential instability. An ice shelf is a floating portion of a glacier, it buttresses glaciers that drain into it and is in turn buttressed by pinning points along …

March 30, 2015

Leroux Bay Glacier Retreat-Island Formation, Antarctic Peninsula

Leroux Bay is on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula in Graham Land. Numerous glacier drain from the Antarctic Peninsula into the ocean along this coast, and as they retreat the coastline is changing.