Sermeq Konrad Steffen

Sermeq Konrad Steffen
Map showing the location of Sermeq Konrad Steffen
Map showing the location of Sermeq Konrad Steffen
Sermeq Konrad Steffen
Location in North Greenland.
TypeIce sheet glacier
LocationNortheast Greenland National Park Greenland
Coordinates81°16′19″N 57°8′42″W / 81.27194°N 57.14500°W / 81.27194; -57.14500
Length20 km (12 mi)
TerminusOcean
StatusRetreating

Description

Sermeq Konrad Steffen is a tidewater ice-sheet glacier in North Greenland. This means that it flows from the ice sheet into the ocean. It is 3 km wide and has an estimated annual iceberg production of three million tonnes per year.[1] The glacier fills the upper reaches of an approximately 100 km long fjord that flows into Robeson Channel, between Ellesmere Island and Greenland, in the northwestern section of Northeast Greenland National Park. It is also located very close to the Greenland ice sheet's oldest surface exposure in nearby Warming Land, where surface ice ages are estimated to be >30,000 years old.[2]

Toponym

Sermeq Konrad Steffen is named after deceased glaciologist Konrad Steffen, in honor of his exceptional contributions to Greenland science and society.[3] The Greenland Place Names Committee[4] recognized that Steffen established and maintained a network of climate stations on the ice sheet and consistently highlighted the climate-change impacts confronting Greenland in the international media.[5] In Greenlandic, "Sermeq" denotes both "glacier" and "ice sheet".[6] The anglicized toponym is therefore "Glacier Konrad Steffen".

Satellite image of Sermeq Konrad Steffen, North Greenland, circa 1999-2002. This image is a subset of the Landsat-7 ETM+ mosaic of the Greenland Ice Mapping Project.[7]
Oblique aerial photograph showing the icefalls and supraglacial streams of Sermeq Konrad Steffen in summer 2022. Photographed by Christiane Leister during the Leister Expedition Go North 2022. Available from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center's Glacier Photograph Collection. [8]

References

  1. ^ Colgan, William. "Named after glaciologist Konrad Steffen for exceptional contributions to Greenlandic science and society". Twitter.
  2. ^ MacGregor, Joseph A.; Fahnestock, Mark A.; Colgan, William T.; Larsen, Nicolaj K.; Kjeldsen, Kristian K.; Welker, Jeffrey M. (August 2020). "The age of surface-exposed ice along the northern margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet". Journal of Glaciology. 66 (258): 667–684. doi:10.1017/jog.2020.62. ISSN 0022-1430.
  3. ^ "Three Greenlandic glaciers named after late glaciologists". eng.geus.dk.
  4. ^ "Place Names Committee". Greenland Language Secretariat.
  5. ^ "Glacier Named For Konrad Steffen, Former CIRES Director". CIRES. 17 June 2022.
  6. ^ "Greenlandic-English Dictionary". Ordbog.gl (in Danish). 30 January 2023.
  7. ^ Howat, I. 2017, updated 2018. MEaSUREs Greenland Ice Mapping Project (GIMP) 2000 Image Mosaic, Version 1. Subset Tile 2_5. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/4RNTRRE4JCYD.
  8. ^ National Snow and Ice Data Center. 2023. Glacier Photograph Collection, Version 1. Sermeq Konrad Steffen Glacier. Boulder, Colorado USA. https://doi.org/10.7265/N5/NSIDC-GPC-2009-12. Date Accessed 01-31-2023.