Earth ID: 12444

Landsat's Global View of Ice Velocity

Released on December 12, 2016

Ice from glaciers constantly flows into the ocean, but the speed the ice moves at changes. Landsat 8 provides near-real-time mapping of ice speed in nearly all the world’s frozen regions. Information like ice speed helps scientists study our home planet and its vulnerability to rising seas.

Heimdal Glacier in southeastern Greenland shows a regular speed up and slow down with the seasons. Peak speeds are around May/June, and low speeds occur in September/October.

This velocity data is a result of new analysis of imagery from the Operational Land Imager on the NASA/USGS Landsat 8 satellite, part of the Global Landsat Ice Velocity Extraction (GoLIVE) project.

Music credit: Tiny Worlds by Christian Telford [ASCAP], David Travis Edwards [ASCAP], Matthew St Laurent [ASCAP], Robert Anthony Navarro [ASCAP]

Complete transcript available.

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

The flow of ice is moving fast at Greenland’s Heimdal Glacier in June 2016 and starts slowing down before the end of summer, with the slowest point coming in early October.

Source Material

For More Information

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-usgs-landsat-8-satellite-provides-global-view-of-speed-of-ice

Credits

Kate Ramsayer (Telophase): Writer
Matthew R. Radcliff (USRA): Producer
Kathryn Mersmann (USRA): Producer
Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Animator
Twila Moon (University of Bristol): Scientist
Mark Fahnestock (University of Alaska): Scientist
Ted Scambos (NSIDC): Scientist
Alex S. Gardner (NASA/JPL CalTech): Scientist

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12444

Missions:
Landsat
LDCM: Landsat Data Continuity Mission

This item is part of these series:
Narrated Movies
Landsat

Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
SVS >> Landsat
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Cryosphere >> Glaciers/Ice Sheets
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Cryosphere >> Snow/Ice >> Ice Velocity
GCMD >> Location >> Greenland
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0