C. H. Ostenfeldt Gletscher / Victoria Fjord / North Greenland

[Espen]

I have done some studies with C. H. Ostenfeldt Gletscher one of the very large outlet glaciers in the North of Greenland, and I realized the not so big giant anymore retreated up to 24 km over 14 years from 1999.

Please click on the image to enlarge! It is very large

[Espen]

C. H. Ostenfeldt Gletscher update, not much happening since May 2013, but still signs of retreat.

Please click on image to start animation!

[Espen]

C. H. Ostenfeldt Gletscher is on the move:

[Espen]

 C. H. Ostenfeldt Gletscher is preparing for a large calving, the width of this calving front is 10 km!:

Click on image to enlarge!

[A-Team]

Nice spotting. Seems odd for mid-January?

Monitoring is a lot easier than in the olden days -- 1990 -- when people had nothing more than the occasional photo from an airplane.

And that was a big break-through from the 1920's when they didn't even have those. One of the applications   vindicated Bretz's theory of the Missoula Floods and formation of the Grand Coulee, though a lot of geologists didn't believe the first pictures either, for 40 years! Very similar to the treatment Wegener got with plate tectonics.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Harlen_Bretz

North Greenland Glacier Velocities and Calf Ice Production
AK Higgins
Polarforschung 60 (1): 1-23, 1990
http://epic.awi.de/28269/1/Polarforsch1990_1_1.pdf

[Espen]

C. H. Ostenfeldt Gletscher together with Harder Gletscher (right) was influenced by the same full moon arctivity around July 20 2016 as Ryder Gletscher:

[Espen]

C. H. Ostenfeldt Gletscher is relatively active compared to many other Arctic Glaciers this season, the left arm of the glacier is now free from the butt rest further ahead (rock), and the left calving front will presumably be retreating down along the Nunatak (island) in the middle of the glacier.

[Espen]

Temperature at C. H. Ostenfeldt Gletscher:

[Alphabet Hotel]

boom!

Not only is the ice at the entrance breaking apart, there is a lot of surface melt as well.

[Niall Dollard]

I am intrigued by this large cigar shaped berg that's been moving up and down Victoria Fjord when the fast ice breaks. It measures approximately 12 km by 2km.

This summer it has been moving a lot.

I have had a look back through other years on sentinel and also on Worldview. Sometimes it pivots about a central point. It has migrated towards the top of the fjord but I wonder is it a piece that calved not around 1999/2000 ?

Looking at Espen's 1999 image, I wonder could it have broken from the magenta circled area ?

Is the berg we are now looking at, one that began life 19 years ago ?

I'll attach a few images going back through the years. 

[Niall Dollard]

Early image from worldview in 2001

More or less same place on 24 July 2003

Then it starts a big move end July & August 2003 (GIF of 7 day movement from Aug 9th)

[Niall Dollard]

More images Aug 2005

August 2008

Sept 2015

Aug 2017

[Niall Dollard]

The sun has returned to Victoria Fjord and here is that large cigar shaped piece embedded in the sea ice after overwintering.

It's located about 25 kms from the mouth of the fjord. Who knows will it escape into the Nares Strait this year ? 

[Niall Dollard]

Despite such a warm summer the cigar shaped berg hasnt moved much this year. There was a little late break up near the berg around September but it hasnt moved much from its wintering spot.

Here's an image from Sept 18th. New ice forming in the open spots around. Settling in for winter.

June and July were very torrid with melt visible in the ridges. Second image is from June 17th.

[Niall Dollard]

The fast ice in the Victoria Fjord has started to break up.

My "favourite" berg could well be on the move. It is the long large berg arrowed. It's about 12km long. I dont think it has moved much from its current position since 2020.

I believe the berg was calved sometime around the turn of this century. Probably will have a few more weeks now before the ice sets in again.

[Jim Hunt]

If he can get that far, Oden is on his way to inspect Victoria Fjord:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2024/08/facts-about-the-arctic-in-august-2024/#Aug-11

[Espen]

The fast ice in the Victoria Fjord has started to break up.

My "favourite" berg could well be on the move. It is the long large berg arrowed. It's about 12km long. I dont think it has moved much from its current position since 2020.

I believe the berg was calved sometime around the turn of this century. Probably will have a few more weeks now before the ice sets in again.

This iceberg is from the time C.H. Ostenfeldt had a saw blade tongue, which was very typical of many glaciers in Greenland before the big melt, feel free to find your piece!

Please click on image to animate and enlarge!

[Niall Dollard]

h/t to Jim Hunt who let me know that the Swedish Icebreaker Oden is on course up the Victoria Fjord. Apparently the first ship to do this. Their mission, amongst others, is to explore the glaciers.

Yesterday they explored some nearby lakes. I'd love if they could get some close ups of that big berg to their west. Not the most exciting of pictures yet but hopefully we will see more from the expedition blog at this link :

https://www.polar.se/nyheter/2024/groenlaendska-myskoxar/

"Victoria Fjord, 82.5 degrees north, August 20, 2024

It has been a long journey up to the Victoria Fjord with Oden, sometimes through several meters thick ice. But now we are finally here! Up on land around the Victoria Fjord there are a number of lakes that are an important component of our research project. We will use a floating platform to absorb sediment cores from the bottom of the lakes, and then analyze prehistoric DNA from these cores. The purpose is to investigate the history of the Greenlandic musk oxen, including how they were affected when the first people arrived in Greenland."

[IceFloe]

Apparently the first ship to do this.

This is not stated directly, unlike the neighboring fjord that Oden visited in 2019.

"During the Ryder 2019 expedition, Oden became the first ship to reach the fjord where Ryder Glacier flows into the sea."
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1048115

Victoria is much better known than Ryder, due to the fact that the discoverers first considered it to be a strait, together with Independence Fjord, which separates Peary Land from the rest of Greenland. In this case, the United States had the right to this part of the land.

I used to think that the inaccessible big fiord in the world is the main inland fiord of Ellesmere Island. This huge bay - Greely Fiord is separated from the ocean by hundreds of kilometers of perennial ice. The entrance to it is called the Nansen Sound. It is extremely difficult to find information about these places.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greely_Fiord
Have there been attempts by ships to enter it?

P.S. Wikipedia claims that every summer the Eureka station in those places is supplied with the help of a cargo ship from Montreal. The Nansen Sound there is called Eureka Sound.

[Jim Hunt]

Wikipedia claims that every summer the Eureka station in those places is supplied with the help of a cargo ship from Montreal.

The sealift is due in Eureka on August 27th:

https://arcticsealift.com/en/schedule.php

[Niall Dollard]

Apparently the first ship to do this.

This is not stated directly, unlike the neighboring fjord that Oden visited in 2019.

The quotation below is taken from this page (translated from Swedish) :

"From Stockholm University we have sent down three 20-foot containers filled with research equipment that is now in place at Oden. Now we follow the ice situation and wait for departure, says Nina Kirchner.

Right in the ice situation is something that can be a challenge when Oden gets to the hard-to-reach Victoria fjord, a place no one has been to before."

Maybe something is lost in translation. I am sure many people have travelled to Victoria Fjord. I suppose the question then is, how far up the fjord has a ship sailed before ?

https://www.polar.se/nyheter/2024/expedition-till-victoriafjorden-ska-oeka-kunskapen-om-groenlands-smaeltande-glaciaerer/

[Espen]

I believe it is the first surface vessel to visit Victoria Fjord, a few years ago (2019) Oden visited Sherard Osburn Fjord and Ryder Gletscher.

https://www.su.se/english/research/research-projects/ryder-glacier-expedition-2019

[Niall Dollard]

Live meteorological data and position of Oden is available on the weatherobs.com site.

Currently it is about 1° C and located near the NW side of Stephenson Island. Perhaps they are visiting the island. Previously they ventured further up the fjord, southeast of Stephenson.

[Niall Dollard]

Oden's team setting up timelapse camera at the C.H. Ostenfeldt Glacier



There are some nice images of the fjord also now available at this link :

https://www.polar.se/nyheter/2024/maetningar-i-victoriafjorden/

[IceFloe]

Finally, they wrote it clearly.

https://phys.org/news/2024-08-icebreaker-oden-marine-scientific-uncharted.html

The GEOEO North of Greenland 2024 Expedition, organized by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat aboard the icebreaker Oden, has made history as the first vessel to reach the remote Victoria Fjord in North Greenland.

As the Victoria Fjord's depth is completely unknown, Oden is systematically mapping the way into the fjord using its advanced echosounding system while breaking through the ice. Enroute to the fjord, Oden encountered heavy ice in the Lincoln Sea, but through the experience and competence of the crew, it managed to reach this important objective.

[Niall Dollard]

Oden Ice breaker headed north out of the Victoria Fjord and made a brief excursion into the end of Nordenskiöld Fjord before now heading back out into the Lincoln Sea.

I wonder where it is headed now ?

[Espen]

I wonder where it is headed now ?

With a high probability towards Nares, if further north they will be in previously unnavigable territory, in fact no one has circumnavigated Greenland, a rare challenge left for those with the means!

[IceFloe]

PolarStern came quite close to the north of Greenland in 2014 and 2020. I don't think it would be too difficult to go around Greenland now.

[Espen]

PolarStein came quite close to the north of Greenland in 2014 and 2020. I don't think it would be too difficult to go around Greenland now.

So?

[Jim Hunt]

PolarStern came quite close to the north of Greenland in 2014 and 2020.

Polarstern came extremely close to the north of Greenland in 2018:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2018/08/could-northabout-circumnavigate-greenland-in-2018/

So?

I assume IceFloe is suggesting that Oden might well turn east rather than west?

[Espen]

PolarStern came quite close to the north of Greenland in 2014 and 2020.

Polarstern came extremely close to the north of Greenland in 2018:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2018/08/could-northabout-circumnavigate-greenland-in-2018/

So?

I assume IceFloe is suggesting that Oden might well turn east rather than west?

No I dont think so for many reasons.

[oren]

This discussion of where Oden is headed and past voyages does not belong in this thread. I moved IceFloe's latest post to another thread.

[Niall Dollard]

Significant update on Oden's trip in Victoria Fjord and nearby Nordenskjöld Fjord

"The data collection in the fjord has been far more successful than I had dared to hope, even if the amazing armada of icebergs from the collapsed ice tongue efficiently put a stop to us at about 37 km from the fjord mouth. We have acquired over 1,520 square kilometres of multibeam bathymetry,"

Link to blog here

 https://www.polar.se/en/news/2024/successful-data-collection-in-the-victoria-and-nordenskjoeld-fjords/

Also revealed where they were headed. A sortie around the Lincoln Sea.

Beginning to wonder now if the flat berg in the image attached could be my favourite berg that I have been tracking for several years now upthread. Although I dont see any of the saw tooth patterns on top.

Final image shows some of the mapping conducted.

[IceFloe]

Also revealed where they were headed. A sortie around the Lincoln Sea.

Have you seen the latest MODIS images of this area? It makes no difference which way to sail back, west, east or north. The entire area is uniformly packed with multi-year ice, many meters thick, some of the thickest in the Arctic. I suppose it makes no difference to the icebreakers now which route they take in the Arctic.

[Espen]

Oden:

[Niall Dollard]

I see from the data shown on the weatherobs site for the icebreaker Oden that the air temperature has dropped during the 4th Sept down to -6.7°.

On the decoded extra tab the SSTs from Oden are also shown in the right hand column. Also now down to -1°.