About forty years ago, I was lucky enough to be involved in organising a scientific expedition to North-East Greenland. Our basecamp was on the Bersaerkerbrae Glacier in Scoresby Land, which at 72 degrees North is well within the Arctic Circle and forty years ago was only accessible in summer when the snow receded. We measured ablation rates on the glacier [1], counted muskoxen in the surrounding landscape [2] [see ‘Reasons for publishing scientific papers‘ on April 21st 2021] and drilled boreholes in the ice of the glacier. We performed mechanical tests on the ice cores obtained from different depths in the glacier and in various locations in order to assess the spatial distribution of the material properties of the ice in the glacier. This is important information for producing accurate simulations of the flow of the glacier, although our research did not extend to modelling the glacier. We could also have used our ice cores to investigate the climatic history of the region. The Greenland ice sheet contains an archive record of the climate on Earth for about the last half million years, stored in the snow and trapped air bubbles accumulated over that time period. If the ice sheet melts then that unique record will be lost forever.
The thumbnail image is a map of the depth of ice in the Greenland ice sheet. The map is about five years old and has a wide green fringe along the east coast. Scoresby Land is the penisula to the north of the large fiord in the middle of the east coast. In 1982, the edge of the ice sheet was about 80 miles from the Bersaerkerbrae Glacier, whereas today it is at least twice that distance because the ice sheet is receding.
References:
[1] Patterson EA, 1984, A mathematical model for perched block formation. Journal of Glaciology. 30(106):296-301.
[2] Patterson EA, 1984, ‘Sightings of Muskoxen in Northern Scoresby Land, Greenland’, Arctic, 37(1): 61-63.
Realize Engineering 
