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Glacial Torrent

December 21, 2017

In 2012, 98 percent of the Greenland Ice Sheet‘s surface area melted for several days, sending torrents of meltwater down glaciers near the coast. Rising meltwaters and icebergs also tore apart the banks of rivers flowing from the front of the glaciers. Ben Linfoff, a MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student, kept a journal chronicling his experiences during the springs and summers of 2011 and 2012 when he camped at a remote site near the Leverett Glacier, sampling meltwater emanating from the ice sheet. The samples were analyzed to determine the sources of the meltwater and to reveal its flow patterns. (Photo by Ben Linhoff, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)