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Curtains of Light

November 13, 2012

The aurora borealis, or northern lights, danced across the night sky during a recent expedition by physical oceanographer Fiamma Straneo to southeastern Greenland. Straneo and her colleagues were there to study the connection between ocean circulation and climate-driven changes to Greenland glaciers. Greenland’s ice sheet has lost mass at an accelerated rate over the last decade. “We need to know more about how the ocean changes at the glaciers edge,” says Straneo. “It’s critical to improving predictions of future ice sheet variability and sea level rise.”(Photo by Will Ostrom, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)