Vavilov Ice Cap - Severnaya Zemlya

[vox_mundi]

Unusual Glacier Flow, First-Ever Look at Ice Stream Formation
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-ice-river-arctic-glacier-seas.html

Scientists have captured the birth of a high-speed ice feature for the first time on top of a Russian glacier.



In a remote archipelago of the Russian Arctic, Vavilov Ice Cap had been moving at a glacial pace for decades. Then, in 2013, it suddenly started spewing ice into the sea, flowing in what scientists call a glacial surge. But a new study suggests this surge has now become something entirely different.

The authors of the new study published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters have documented what they believe is the first observation of a transition from a glacial surge to a longer-lasting flow called an ice stream.

Ice streams and glacial surges were believed to be separate phenomena driven by different mechanisms.

... if the authors of the new study are correct, glacial surges could instead be an early stage of an ice stream. If surging ice can form an ice stream on a glacier like Vavilov, then other ice caps (... Greenland, Antarctica) might also experience similar rapid ice loss

... "If that's true, we probably have to revise our predictions for the impact of global sea level rise in the future,"

- Whyjay Zheng, Ph.D. - lead author of the new study.

Glacial surges transport massive amounts of ice in a short amount of time, typically a few months to several years. On the other hand, ice streams can maintain a constant, rapid flow for decades to centuries.

From the time the surge at Vavilov began in 2013 until the spring of 2019, the ice cap lost 9.5 billion tons of ice, or 11 percent of the ice mass of the entire glacier basin. ...

Open Access: Whyjay Zheng et al, The Possible Transition From Glacial Surge to Ice Stream on Vavilov Ice Cap, Geophysical Research Letters (2019)

[ArcticMelt2]

A major landslide near the Vavilov ice cap?

[ArcticMelt2]

This strip of soil is also absent for 7 days, in the images dated July 17.

[NotaDenier]

This strip of soil is also absent for 7 days, in the images dated July 17.

First image was the 12th.
It must have just happened the last (Cloudy) image is from the 23rd.

Edit1 if you look closely there is a small soil slump right next to the glacier on the 17th (middle image).

Edit2: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-russian-ice-cap-is-collapsing-it-could-be-a-warning/
The glacier was originally contained by a hill that seems to have collapsed in 2013 per the article. This is what allowed to speed up.

Edit3: glacier history.

Edit4: it looks like the land was 33-66m high. I cannot find a picture from the sea looking toward this glacier.

Edit5: found a research paper with land heights from before the glacier surge.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238532348_Severnaya_Zemlya_Arctic_Russia_a_Middle_to_Late_Quaternary_Kara_Sea_Ice_Sheets_Nucleation_Area

Also should this be moved somewhere else O?

[ArcticMelt2]

This strip of soil is also absent for 7 days, in the images dated July 17.

It must have just happened the last (Cloudy) image is from the 23rd.

Thanks, very interesting. I watched the last earthquakes in the area, negatively.

Have you seen the maximum height of the massif that formed the landslide?

[ArcticMelt2]

Edit2: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-russian-ice-cap-is-collapsing-it-could-be-a-warning/
The glacier was originally contained by a hill that seems to have collapsed in 2013 per the article. This is what allowed to speed up.

Of course, this glacier is famous for its rapid slide into the ocean around 2015. That's why I noticed an unusually long landslide in today's MODIS images.

Edit4: it looks like the land was 33-66m high. I cannot find a picture from the sea looking toward this glacier.

Edit5: found a research paper with land heights from before the glacier surge.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238532348_Severnaya_Zemlya_Arctic_Russia_a_Middle_to_Late_Quaternary_Kara_Sea_Ice_Sheets_Nucleation_Area

Looks very little for such a many kilometers of landslide. As if the hill had melted at once and spread quickly. Or the rapid movement of the glacier threw it into the ocean.

[NotaDenier]

Edit2: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-russian-ice-cap-is-collapsing-it-could-be-a-warning/
The glacier was originally contained by a hill that seems to have collapsed in 2013 per the article. This is what allowed to speed up.

Of course, this glacier is famous for its rapid slide into the ocean around 2015. That's why I noticed an unusually long landslide in today's MODIS images.

Edit4: it looks like the land was 33-66m high. I cannot find a picture from the sea looking toward this glacier.

Edit5: found a research paper with land heights from before the glacier surge.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238532348_Severnaya_Zemlya_Arctic_Russia_a_Middle_to_Late_Quaternary_Kara_Sea_Ice_Sheets_Nucleation_Area

Looks very little for such a many kilometers of landslide. As if the hill had melted at once and spread quickly. Or the rapid movement of the glacier threw it into the ocean.

I think that it’s actually mud stirred up by the land slide. Maybe the land slide was small, and what we are seeing is silt being carried away by current now that the land fast ice broke up?

Was the ice break up caused by a small land slide?

[blumenkraft]

A major landslide near the Vavilov ice cap?

Great find, ArcticMelt. Thanks for sharing.

According to the Sentinel Map, there is a lake. Maybe it's not a landslide, but an overflowing lake?

Click to play.

[ArcticMelt2]

I think that it’s actually mud stirred up by the land slide. Maybe the land slide was small, and what we are seeing is silt being carried away by current now that the land fast ice broke up?

Was the ice break up caused by a small land slide?

It seems that you are right. Small landslides seem to be frequent in the area. Another small landslide can be seen in the images from August 2011.

[ArcticMelt2]

According to the Sentinel Map, there is a lake. Maybe it's not a landslide, but an overflowing lake?

But landslides are common in the Arctic.

https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/13/1513/2019/

In just the summer of 2017, we observed coastal retreat of 14.5 m, more than 6 times faster than the long-term average rate of 2.2±0.1 m a−1 (1952–2017). Coastline retreat rates exceeded 1.0±0.1 m d−1 over a single 4 d period.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Coastal-erosion-rates-along-the-circum-Arctic_fig1_309034919

[blumenkraft]

Not saying it's not a landslide. Just throwing around ideas.

[ArcticMelt2]

Not saying it's not a landslide. Just throwing around ideas.

But another paper on page 12 says that this place has stable costs for erosion. So the event seems to be related to the movement of the glacier.

http://www.ikz.ru/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2012-Lantuit.pdf

[blumenkraft]

Or: The draining of melt ponds higher up at the glacier.

Again, only an idea.

[Juan C. García]

I found this video. You may find useful information there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNGekuAOu-c&feature=emb_rel_end

[ArcticMelt2]

Recently wrote that this is the fastest warming place in the world.

https://twitter.com/mikarantane/status/1277171510764068864

If using only the past 30-year trends, the warming rate is higher and reaches locally up to 7 times! (Note the different color scale).

[NotaDenier]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Revolution_Island

Research paper
http://lin.irk.ru/pdf/6681.pdf

https://blogs.agu.org/fromaglaciersperspective/2012/02/03/severnaya-zemlya-glacier-change-russia/

[ArcticMelt2]

Or: The draining of melt ponds higher up at the glacier.

Again, only an idea.

You were right. This is really dirty lake water. It's amazing that there is so much of it in such a cold place. The average monthly temperature even in July here does not exceed one degree Celsius.

[blumenkraft]

Always good to put ideas on the table.  I was pretty sure about that because 1) the same happens only a little further west (see attachment - click to enlarge) and 2) the soil seems rather rocky there.

[paolo]

Why marvel, in July the melting was massive, as shown in the false color picture of this Ice Cap of 15/07, and its continues. With such years this Cape is doomed, less than a third of the Cape has kept the snow cover, on the rest of the surface the melting has attacked the ice itself and the season is not yet over...

Edit: I've seen that WorldView is better than Sentinel2 for this. So I add a less zoomed image of 07/17. The observation is appalling and the smallest Ice Caps did not keep any snow cover...

click to zoom in

[prokaryotes]

Recently wrote that this is the fastest warming place in the world.

https://twitter.com/mikarantane/status/1277171510764068864

Not saying that you are wrong but there is also this.

New research shows the South Pole is warming faster than the rest of the world

The observed South Pole temperature, with measurements dating back to 1957, shows 30-year temperature swings ranging from more than 1℃ of cooling during the 20th century to more than 1.8℃ of warming in the past 30 years.

The temperature variability at the South Pole is so extreme it currently masks human-caused effects. The Antarctic interior is one of the few places left on Earth where human-caused warming cannot be precisely determined, which means it is a challenge to say whether, or for how long, the warming will continue.

But our study reveals extreme and abrupt climate shifts are part of the climate of Antarctica’s interior. These will likely continue into the future, working to either hide human-induced warming or intensify it when natural warming processes and the human greenhouse effect work in tandem.

https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-the-south-pole-is-warming-faster-than-the-rest-of-the-world-141536

[ArcticMelt2]

Not saying that you are wrong but there is also this.

New research shows the South Pole is warming faster than the rest of the world

There it is 3 times faster than the global level, and here it is 7 times faster.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0815-z

Over the last three decades, the South Pole has experienced a record-high statistically significant warming of 0.61 ± 0.34 °C per decade, more than three times the global average.

[ArcticMelt2]

By the way, in today's photo, many cracks in the fast ice go exactly to the glacier tongue. Possible this is actually caused by the movement of the glacier.

In contrast, the July 17 image shows solid landfast ice without cracks.

[NotaDenier]

More pictures from sentinel.

[lurkalot]

Could the persistence of the ice to the west of SZ be related to the run-off from Vavilov?

[blumenkraft]

This is a very good question, Lurkalot.

Could be a freshwater lens freezing deeper (bottom fast) than the surrounding sea ice?

[NotaDenier]

Picture from the 26th.
Land fast ice is breaking up.

It looks like some small calvings too?

[NotaDenier]

Some more calving?

[ArcticMelt2]

Is this glacier really floating? There seems to be shallow depths and the tongue itself has advanced only 10 km from the coast.

[ArcticMelt2]

It is written that part of the tongue lies on the seabed, and part floats.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/144790/a-surprising-surge-at-vavilov-ice-cap

Willis and his colleagues are still piecing together what triggered such a dramatic surge. They suspect that marine sediments immediately offshore are unusually slippery, perhaps containing clay. Also, water must have somehow found its way under the land-based part of the glacier, reducing friction and priming the ice to slide. Observations from several satellites suggests that the northern and southern edges of the glacial tongue are grounded on the sea bottom, while the middle is probably floating, another factor that has made it easier for ice to push forward at a rapid rate.

The sudden surge raises questions about the future of Vavilov Ice Cap. Though the glacier’s pace slowed somewhat in 2018, it has sped up again in 2019. “If this continues, we could be witnessing the demise of this ice cap,” said Willis. “Already, Vavilov has thinned enough that snow has stopped accumulating on its upper reaches, and it is a small ice cap in the first place.”

[Alphabet Hotel]

July 31 vs. July 26. You can see the white part of the cap shrink and the next layer get darker in just five days, in addition to the new outflow.

[NotaDenier]

June
July and last two from August