02/12/2022
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The exceptional moraine patterns of Malaspina Glacier – the biggest piedmont glacier on the planet – are featured on this false-colour picture acquired by Copernicus Sentinel-2.
Click on on the picture under to discover it in its full 10 m decision.
Malaspina Glacier is positioned west of Yakutat Bay in southeast Alaska, US. Protecting an space of round 2900 sq km, the glacier flows for round 80 km alongside the southern base of Mount St. Elias and is round 300 m thick.
Malaspina flows quicker than the piedmont glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland. Piedmont glaciers move from a steeply sided valley, the place the ice is constrained by mountains, onto a flat plain. The change in atmosphere from slender to extensive creates the piedmont’s signature rounded lobe.
This Sentinel-2 picture exhibits the central lobe of the glacier surging in direction of the ocean. This picture has been processed utilizing the near-infrared channel to spotlight vegetation in vibrant crimson. The wavy traces across the decrease half of the glacier are rock, soil and different particles which have been deposited by the glacier – known as moraines.
The color of soil varies from mild to darkish brown within the picture, whereas ice and snow seem vibrant white. The low Solar stage at Alaska’s excessive latitudes throughout this season is obvious by the shadows forged north by the Elias Mountains. Clear waters of the Pacific Ocean seem darkish blue, whereas turbid waters seem in cyan.
The Malaspina Glacier is extensively studied by scientists all over the world. Its vulnerability to local weather change and its cycles of surges and retreats have been studied by scientists utilizing Copernicus and Landsat information. They discovered that within the occasion of sea stage rise, induced by local weather change, seawater might trigger main adjustments within the glacier’s terminus and result in extreme impacts on habitats within the space.
This picture, additionally featured on the Earth from Area video programme, was captured on 4 July 2022.
