Ice In Motion

Jason Box, a glaciologist at Ohio State University in Columbus has been studying the glacial breakup of Greenland’s Petermann Glacier. He spent two months on a ship observing the glacier but on August 4, 2010, a piece of ice four times the size of Manhattan broke off the glacier. In the past few years, many of these pieces of ice have been breaking off glaciers and falling into the oceans of the world. Scientists assume that if the glaciers keep moving faster and faster and breaking off at the rate their going, in the next few centuries, the water level may raise by 67 meters. Scientists are trying to better understand the movement of these glaciers and are setting up the glaciers with cameras, instruments, and underwater submersibles to learn what drives and moves the ice toward the ocean. One of the fastest flowing glaciers is the Jakobshavn Isbrae on Greenland’s west coast. In 2008 Albert Behar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, dropped 90 rubber ducks into water tunnels and try to follow them through the glacier. However the ducks have not appeared on the other side of the glacier. Since this iceberg has been emitting ice pieces into the ocean for years, many believe it could have been part of the Titanic incident in 1912.

This is discovery based science because the scientists are discovering how the glaciers move towards the ocean and how the melting of the ice could raise the sea levels.

This is important because if the glaciers melt in the polar ice caps, the sea levels could rise dramatically and affect millions of people living on the coast.

Author: Alexandra Witze

Title: Ice in Motion

Date Published: March 26, 2011

Pages: 23-24