June 23, 2023 - Thawing on Greenland's East Coast

[image06232023_main.jpg] [image06232023_rollover.jpg]

June 22, 2023 February 22, 2023
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As the Earth’s largest island, Greenland dominates the North Atlantic
Ocean, substantially filling the watery gap between North America and
Europe. Stretching about 1,660 miles (2,670 m) from north to south,
two-thirds of Greenland lies within the Arctic Circle. Bounded by the
North Atlantic Ocean in the south and the Greenland Sea on the east,
Greenland's northern coast reaches the Arctic Ocean.

Given the high-north location, the climate is cold in summer and frigid
in winter. About 80 percent of Greenland is covered by an ancient ice
sheet year-round, while winter’s weather tops the island with snow as
sea ice forms along the coastline. As daylight lengthens and
temperatures rise in the spring, sea ice begins to break up and melt.
Greenland’s melting season typically starts in May and ends in
September.

On June 23, 2023, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of summer
melt well underway in Eastern Greenland. While thin ice still floats on
most of the rivers and fjords along the coast, the thick fast ice that
clung to the coastline and over the Greenland Sea during the winter has
given way to bergy bits and growlers, with only a thin margin of fast
ice remaining. Bergy bits are medium to large fragments of ice, while
growlers are smaller—roughly the size of a truck or grand piano.

The June 23 scene, which shows active melt in Eastern Greenland can be
easily compared to an image of the same area acquired by the MODIS on
Terra on February 22, 2023, by clicking on the dates under the image.
The mid-winter scene shows smooth, thick fast ice covering all
waterways, clinging to the coast, and reaching far into the Greenland
Sea. In both images, a bank of cloud covers the Greenland Sea near the
eastern edge of the image.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 6/23/2023
Resolutions: 1km (295.8 KB), 500m (952.2 KB), 250m (2.6 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2023-06-23

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