Scientists like myself always have ideas and theories on how oceans and climate work, but these need testing with real (not virtual) data before they can be accepted as truth or dismissed as fool’s errand. This is how science works. And today the National Science Foundation recommended that funds are made available for me to work with German scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute to test some of our ideas with direct ocean current and temperature measurements. Together we will explore how heat from the deep Atlantic Ocean moves towards Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden Gletscher (often also called 79N Glacier) and Zachariae Isstrom. These are two of the largest glaciers in Greenland, both have floating ice shelves, and both are in some of the most remote and least explored coastal areas of Greenland.
Greenland’s tidewater glaciers are losing mass at an increasing rate. Warm ocean waters of Atlantic origin are a main source of heat for melting these glaciers from below. While the exact contributions and details of ocean melting vary from glacier to glacier, little doubt exists that the ocean’s heat and currents contribute to retreating glaciers. And yet, nobody really knows how the heat from the deep Atlantic Ocean 1. crosses shallow and broad continental shelves to 2. enter the coastal fjords, and to 3. reach the glaciers. The maps show glaciers in the left, deep ocean on the right, and partly ice-covered shallow continental shelves in the middle off North-East Greenland.
Our provisional idea is that a 20-km wide channel facilitates movement of warm Atlantic waters across the shelf towards coastal glaciers and ice shelves. More specifically, we want to find out if warm Atlantic water crosses the NE Greenland shelf as a bottom-intensified flow off Norske Oer Trough towards 79N and Zachariae Glaciers. Furthermore, I speculate that variable ice cover does not influence this postulated current of Atlantic waters towards the glaciers, but that a physical process involving tidal currents near Belgica Bank does.
The above statements are provisional ideas (or hypotheses) to be tested with analyses of moored and satellite observations, diagnostic modeling, and synoptic ship-based surveys of water temperature, salinity, density, and currents. As the ocean is forced by physics at the ice-water, air-water, and ice-air interfaces, our study also includes data from a meteorological station as well as satellite observations to investigate sea ice.
Earlier this year I was dreaming about such a study when writing about “Travels-by-Mind.” This was the first or second step in what now will become real because the funds from the NSF will allow me to build instruments, buy batteries, and travel to board the German research icebreaker R/V Polarstern next year. A group of scientists from Germany, Norway, Canada, and the US will work together to uncover how warm ocean water 200-300 meters below the surface approach two of the largest glaciers of Greenland.
I am humbled by and most grateful to American and German tax payers who make this work possible by paying for these studies. I will shared data, science, and excitement with everyone on these and other pages.
Budéus, G., & Schneider, W. (1995). On the hydrography of the Northeast Water Polynya Journal of Geophysical Research, 100 (C3) DOI: 10.1029/94JC02024
Hughes, N., Wilkinson, J., & Wadhams, P. (2011). Multi-satellite sensor analysis of fast-ice development in the Norske Øer Ice Barrier, northeast Greenland Annals of Glaciology, 52 (57), 151-160 DOI: 10.3189/172756411795931633
Reeh, N., Thomsen, H., Higgins, A., & Weidick, A. (2001). Sea ice and the stability of north and northeast Greenland floating glaciers Annals of Glaciology, 33 (1), 474-480 DOI: 10.3189/172756401781818554
Wadhams, P., Wilkinson, J., & McPhail, S. (2006). A new view of the underside of Arctic sea ice Geophysical Research Letters, 33 (4) DOI: 10.1029/2005GL025131