{"id":771244,"date":"2026-04-07T07:18:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=771244"},"modified":"2026-04-07T07:50:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:50:36","slug":"mapping-greenlands-seabed","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/mapping-greenlands-seabed","title":{"rendered":"Mapping Greenland\u2019s Fjords and Glaciers: Three Ice Tongues and the Secrets of the Seafloor"},"author":671,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[280472,278022,493368,481172],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[478392],"esri_blog_department":[478172,478212],"class_list":["post-771244","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-arctic","tag-bathymetry","tag-glacier","tag-seabed-mapping","esri-blog-category-ocean","esri_blog_department-mapping","esri_blog_department-resilience"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"Researchers map the seabed of northern Greenland\u2019s fjords, revealing glacier dynamics, climate impacts, and measuring sea-level rise.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"Bathymetric mapping of remote Greenland fjords reveals critical insights into glacier dynamics, ocean interactions, and climate change impacts shaping the Arctic environment.\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Key Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Maps of Greenland\u2019s fjords reveal underwater features that shape glacier behavior.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Detailed maps show why some glaciers are melting faster.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Climate models and sea level rise predictions clarify glacier-ocean interactions in the warming Arctic.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Swedish icebreaker <em>Oden<\/em> set a course in summer 2024 through the Nares Strait, a narrow, ice-choked waterway that cleaves Greenland from the Canadian Arctic. The ship was headed for Greenland\u2019s Victoria Fjord, near the world\u2019s northernmost land point\u2014a place so remote, no known ship had ever explored it.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Oden<\/em> carried a group of 40 scientists who study the Arctic. It marked the third such trip to Greenland fjords since 2015, all organized by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat. But none had yet attempted to penetrate this far into the thick summer sea ice.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A diesel-powered behemoth, <em>Oden<\/em> spreads 107 meters from stem to stern and rises six stories above the waterline. The trip would take them farther into the Last Ice Area (LIA) than icebreaker captains like to go. A few of the scientists calculated 20 percent odds of reaching Victoria without turning back.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Onboard, two experts in marine geology and geophysics\u2014Martin Jakobsson, of Stockholm University, and Larry Mayer, of the University of New Hampshire\u2014led a team of mapmakers. They planned to use a geographic information system (GIS) to map the fjord\u2019s seafloor, 400 meters below the ice.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The maps would support the work of all scientists on the expedition and potentially reveal crucial secrets about the rising oceans.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Icy Spatial Context<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mapping underwater topography requires the creation of a bathymetry map, comparable to a topographic map of land. <em>Oden<\/em>\u2019s acoustic tools\u2014echo sounders for seafloor depth and shape, Doppler profiles for currents, sub-bottom profilers for sediment history\u2014feed the maps with all the details they need.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In turn, the maps provide what Mayer, in a mid-voyage dispatch, called \u201cspatial context\u201d for the biological, oceanographic, and geochemical data being gathered.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The maps also had a more immediate application. Victoria Fjord had been observed through satellite imagery, but never closely mapped at the source.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No known nautical charts existed. The lack of exact knowledge about depth and the presence of small islands, along with the constant presence of sea ice, called for slow movement and extreme caution.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The technology was \u201cessential for determining whether <em>Oden<\/em> can safely navigate in the uncharted waters in the area,\u201d Mayer wrote.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ten days and 227 nautical miles later, <em>Oden<\/em> reached Victoria. The maps made there confirmed one theory\u2014and uncovered an unsolved mystery.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[771250,771247,771249,771540]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Modeling the Rising Seas<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To understand sea level rise, scientists build predictive models. Planners and policymakers use the models to see where and when municipalities will require evacuations, and which coastlines can be protected by seawalls.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The models affect where houses will be built, and how critical infrastructure will be protected. They also strengthen economic predictions, such as quantifying risks for insurers and underwriters. These decisions have broad implications, directly impacting much of the global population. One billion people worldwide live within 10 kilometers of a coastline. In the US alone, 140 million live in coastal counties.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Without good knowledge of the melting glaciers, predictive sea level models will be inaccurate by between 15 and 20 percent. And because some of the changes are happening below the ocean\u2019s surface, satellite imagery is not enough.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists have no choice but to make slow voyages through the ice, using GIS to make bathymetric maps. The future of sea level modeling demands it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>All Eyes on the Ice Sheet<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Around the time of the first of the three <em>Oden<\/em> voyages, in 2015, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet\u2014a single mass covering 80 percent of the island\u2014was determined to be the biggest driver of sea level rise. It remains so today.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Greenland\u2019s ice sheet includes at least 215 glaciers that terminate at the coastline. The sheer mass of these glaciers leads to their enormous kinetic force. Over time, as snowpack accrues, a glacier slowly turns over on itself, letting gravity carry it to the coast. Imagine a blob of very cold honey on an incline, slowly succumbing to gravity.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This constant motion puts stress on the glacier, causing fissures to form. When the fissures ripple outward, compromising the glacier\u2019s stability, ice chunks break off the front and into the ocean\u2014a process called calving.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every year, Greenland\u2019s coastal glaciers calve around 450 gigatons of ice into the ocean, the equivalent mass of the world\u2019s tallest building, Dubai\u2019s Burj Khalifa, every 10 hours.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Absent the warming climate, calving serves a natural purpose, helping a glacier maintain equilibrium over time as its overall mass increases. Today, the melting ice sheet is causing water to run underneath glaciers, accelerating destabilization and increasing the rate of calving.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>The Mystery of Northern Greenland\u2019s Glaciers<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most of the calving currently comes from the glaciers on Greenland\u2019s east, west, and south coasts. But there is an important caveat. The northern glaciers drain a total catchment area that is disproportionately large, compared to the giants on the other coasts. And drainage has been a slower process than elsewhere in Greenland.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the fjords that have slowed calving in the north. Glaciers that drain into fjords develop floating ice tongues that extend out from the water\u2019s edge. Most are between 1 and 40 kilometers long, with a width between 15 and 30 kilometers.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ice tongues anchor themselves to local topography, such as islands and the sides of the fjords. An ice tongue buttresses its glacier, adding structural integrity that slows down the rate of calving.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For now, northern ice tongues are slowing the drainage. But questions remain about how exactly they\u2019re doing this\u2014and how long they\u2019ll continue, as warmer ocean waters eat away at them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>The Vanishing Ice Tongue <\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each of <em>Oden<\/em>\u2019s voyages has targeted one fjord and the glacier it fronts. Each journey has answered a crucial question, while raising another that the next voyage has tried to answer.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The destination of <em>Oden<\/em>\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/bolin.su.se\/data\/oden-petermann-2015-expedition-1\">first voyage<\/a> with the Arctic scientists was the Petermann Fjord, which fronts its namesake glacier. A few years prior, satellite imagery had revealed that the glacier had lost a big chunk of its ice tongue.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists had theorized that warm water from the Atlantic Ocean was flowing up to the Arctic. When the <em>Oden<\/em> team added oceanographic data to the bathymetry, this revealed that warm water was indeed entering the fjord. The warming ocean was melting Petermann\u2019s ice tongue.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>The Growing Ice Tongue<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There was just one problem with this conclusion. Further up the Lincoln Sea, something very different was happening to the Ryder Glacier, which drains at Sherard Osborn Fjord, the destination for <em>Oden<\/em>\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polar.se\/en\/expeditions\/previous-expeditions\/arctic\/ryder-2019\/\">second<\/a> Lincoln Sea voyage, in 2019.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Satellite imagery of the Ryder Glacier revealed that its ice tongue was not only intact\u2014it was stable and sometimes even growing.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was a mystery, and it called into question the warm water theory. If warm water from the Atlantic could reach Petermann, what was stopping it from getting to Sherard Osborn?<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The maps solved the mystery.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like many fjords, Petermann contains a sill, a submerged ridge that can restrict the flow of water between fjord and ocean. Petermann\u2019s outer sill sits at 440 meters below the surface, deep enough to allow the warm water to flow over it and enter the fjord.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sherard Osborn also has an outer sill deep enough for warm water to enter. But an inner sill, just 200 meters down, acts as a second barrier\u2014shallow enough to block the warm water from reaching the glacier.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAnd so, there was the proof,\u201d Mayer said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The warm water theory held.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>\u201cLike a Nuclear Bomb Had Gone Off\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Five years later, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polar.se\/en\/expeditions\/previous-expeditions\/arctic\/geoeo-north-of-greenland-2024\/\">2024 voyage<\/a> initially sowed new doubt about the sill theory.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When <em>Oden<\/em> beat the odds and reached Victoria, it was soon apparent that only about the first one-third of the fjord was accessible. The team could access just part of the fjord\u2019s C. H. Ostenfeld Glacier. Beyond that, huge icebergs blocked the way.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So they hung an echosounder from a cable attached to a helicopter launched from <em>Oden<\/em>. The pilot flew across the icebergs, dipping low to drop in the echo sounder wherever open water appeared.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They gathered bathymetry from just 19 spots. But along with the good data they had already recorded, it was enough for a decent map.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still, the results were troubling. The first sounding showed a shallow sill on the seabed. Unlike at Sherard Osborn, the shallow sill was apparently <em>not<\/em> protecting the ice tongue.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But then they got measurements on the other side of the fjord and found a deep passage allowing warm water to go all the way to the glacier. That was what was melting the ice tongue.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The shallow sill theory of ice tongue protection still held true.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The scientists hoped to get at least a cursory view of the glacier\u2019s face\u2014the place where it met the fjord. Two team members flew over it in the helicopter.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The faces of the Petermann and Ryder Glaciers had appeared smooth and sheer. C. H. Ostenfeld Glacier looked like it was collapsing into the water. Wherever they looked, they saw ice m\u00e9lange, the chaotic mixture of icebergs, sea ice, and snow created when a glacier sheds large icebergs.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off,\u201d Mayer said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Warm water by itself could not cause this level of destruction. \u201cWe think it has something to do with the combination of warm water intrusion and bedrock slopes,\u201d Mayer said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once again, the solving of one scientific mystery raised another\u2014a puzzle that future bathymetry maps will try to solve.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>The Mapping Continues<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2025, <em>Oden<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polar.se\/en\/expeditions\/canada-sweden-arctic-ocean-2025\/\">returned<\/a> to the Arctic\u2014this time joined by a Canadian icebreaker, CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The expanded mission reflects how quickly the stakes have risen. The bathymetric mapping now serves dual purposes: advancing climate science and supporting territorial claims under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the Arctic continues to thaw, opening new shipping routes and exposing untapped resources, the maps take on geopolitical weight. The collaboration brings together scientific inquiry, Indigenous sovereignty (Inuit observers regularly sail aboard Canadian vessels), and strategic interests\u2014all guided by what the seafloor reveals.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The warm water still surges north. The ice tongues are still retreating. And now, with two ships cutting through thinning ice, the race is on to map what remains before it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nLearn how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/about\/science\/initiatives\/ocean-science\">ocean scientists, resource managers, and conservationists apply GIS to map and measure ocean change<\/a>.\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><\/p>"}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mapping Greenland&#039;s Fjords and Glaciers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Researchers map the seabed of northern Greenland, revealing glacier dynamics and climate impacts, and enhancing sea-level rise predictions.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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