New Animated Images Reveal How Glaciers Flow

How do glaciers flow? Scientists are getting a closer look thanks to animated satellite images. The new findings reveal a bit more about how glaciers flow and change over time.

The new animation use images acquired from 1990 to 2015 by three different Landsat satellites operated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA. About 25 years of relatively slow glacier change are compressed into once second, which means glacier movement is sped up about 800 million times.

The animations were created for four regions-Baltoro, Panmah, Skamri-Sarpo Laggo, and Shaksgam in central Karakoram. Karakoram is home to some of the highest peaks in the world, including the famous K2 and glaciers of varying sizes cover much of the steep and high terrain.

The new animations reveal glacier flow and changes over a much longer time period and at a much larger scale than ever before. The new findings actually reveal the complex glacier behavior in the Karakoram, and show that most of the glaciers are not retreating but are instead advancing and flowing into each other.

"From a scientific point of view, the key motivation for this research was to understand the highly variable behavior of the glaciers in the Karakoram," said Frank Paul, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We have known about this for over 50 years, but still have a very limited scientific understanding of what is going on there. The animations are a very practical way to get a better overview and follow the changes through time."

The findings are published in the journal The Cryosphere.

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