ESA ERS-2: Satellite’s final images focus on changing glaciers

Time-lapse animation of images of the Kangerdlugssuaq ice stream taken from March to May 2011. The animation shows the ice stream advancing steadily at a speed of about 35 m per day, until a 9 sq km piece of the glacier broke into icebergs during 19–22 May.

Credits: ESA

Some of the last images from ESA’s ERS-2 satellite have revealed rapidly changing glacial features in Greenland. In its final days, the veteran satellite gave us frequent views of the Kangerdlugssuaq glacier and its advancing ice stream.

Before it retired on 6 July, ESA’s ERS-2 Earth observation satellite entered an orbit to capture radar images of the same area on the ground every three days, rather than its previous 35-day cycle.

Images of the Kangerdlugssuaq glacier in eastern Greenland taken from March to May 2011 show that the ice stream was advancing steadily at about 35 m per day.

Then, between 19 and 22 May, a 9 sq km piece of the glacier broke up into icebergs.

Information from this ERS-2 ‘Ice Phase’ is helpful for studying rapid changes such as landslides, tectonics movements, sea ice and growing crops.