Nature is keeping us in check at every turn. With weather and volcanic ash clouds limiting visibility we have to regularly rearrange plans, but most days we are able to capture a fairly complete set of data.The flight over Russell Glacier in Southwest Greenland (just inland from Kanger) was a redirect from a mission aborted by ash.
Russell Glacier is unlike most of the glaciers we have been surveying – it is land terminating. Glaciers that end inland raise a whole different array of questions than outlet glaciers that end in the ocean. For land terminating glaciers the major mechanism for melting and losing mass is through surface melt ponds (called supraglacial lakes), and we saw lots of them! Flying at ~1500 feet above land, large volumes of water flowed in an extensive network of lakes and channels, draining the water to the glacial margins as well as into moulins (tubular chutes). The water (lakes and channels) appeared to follow the preexisting surface morphology, which created quite interesting visual patterns as evident in the photos.