Image of the Week - Update on Pine Island Glacier
Detailed Description
Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier has calved another iceberg. These Landsat images show the progression since just before the break in September until now.
At the USGS EROS Center, we study land change, operate the Landsat satellites, and maintain the longest, continuously acquired collection of images of the Earth's land surface.
USGS EROS Center (https://eros.usgs.gov/)
Details
Image Dimensions: 1280 x 720
Date Taken:
Length: 00:00:54
Location Taken: AQ
Transcript
A massive iceberg broke
off Pine Island Glacier,
Antarctica, in
September 2017.
The September 21st image
was acquired days before
the iceberg broke off.
A rift runs across the
glacier almost 8 kilometers
from the calving face.
Instead of drifting out
to sea after calving,
sea ice blocked the iceberg’s
movement. By January 2, the
iceberg had broken into
countless pieces. The dark
feature is a polynya, an
area of warmer water, which
likely caused the breakup.
Long sunlight hours during
the Antarctic summer mean
Landsat 8 acquires images
roughly every 3 days in
December and January.
This helps track the
movements of the ice and
project future behavior
of the glacier.