Glacier calving — when ice chunks break away to form icebergs — combined with underwater melting is the main driver for loss of mass from the Greenland Ice Sheet, but the detailed dynamics of this process have remained elusive.
This photo was chosen to illustrate Dominik Gräft and colleagues research in Greenland from when I was documenting the Greenfjord Project. The researchers use fibre-optic sensing to provide a picture of the complex effects of iceberg formation. They found that as icebergs detach from the parent glacier, they spark a series of interactions — including tsunamis and internal waves — that amplify underwater melting and probably lead to further increases in calving. The cover picture captures the face of a Greenland iceberg that resembles the calving front of a glacier with ice fractures and calving-induced tsunamis undercutting the ice front.
Learn more reading the Nature magazine Volume 644 Issue 8076, 14 August 2025
