Zachariæ Isstrøm
Glacier in Greenland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zachariæ Isstrøm (Isstrøm meaning ice stream in Danish) is a large glacier located in King Frederick VIII Land, northeast Greenland.
| Zachariæ Isstrøm | |
|---|---|
1911 map with the Zachariæ Isstrøm at the bottom | |
  Location within Greenland | |
| Type | Piedmont glacier |
| Location | Greenland |
| Coordinates | 78°55′N 21°10′W |
| Area | 91,780 km2 (35,440 sq mi) |
| Width | 26 km |
| Terminus | Jøkel Bay, Greenland Sea North Atlantic Ocean |
This glacier was named by the Denmark expedition 1906–08 after Georg Hugh Robert Zachariæ (1850–1937), an officer of the Danish Navy.[1]
Geography
It drains an area of 91,780 km2 (35,440 sq mi) of the Greenland Ice Sheet with a flux (quantity of ice moved from the land to the sea) of 11.7 km3 (2.8 cu mi) per year, as calculated for 1996,[2] increasing to 15 km3 (3.6 cu mi) in 2015.[3] The glacier holds a 0.5-meter sea-level rise equivalent.
Zachariae Isstrøm has its terminus in the northern part of Jøkel Bay, south of Lambert Land and north of Nørreland, near the Achton Friis Islands.[4] It terminates into an embayment previously packed with multi-year calf ice.[5]
Glacier retreat
Zachariæ Isstrøm broke loose from a stable position in 2012 and entered a phase of accelerated retreat as predicted in 2008.[6]
From a state of approximate mass balance until 2003 it is now losing mass at about 5 Gt/yr. The ice velocity increased by 50% in 2000–2014. In 2012 it detached from a stabilizing sill and retreated rapidly along a downward-sloping, marine-based bed[3] with substantial calving.[7]
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