Jakobshavn Isbræ, West Greenland: the 2002–2003 collapse and nomination for the UNESCO World Heritage List

Jakobshavn Isbræ (also known as Sermeq Kujalleq or Ilulissat Isbræ) is situated at about 69°10′N and 50°00′W in West Greenland. This major outlet from the Inland Ice has an extremely high rate of movement (nearly 1 m/hour) and thus a high production of icebergs, which via the icefjord float westwards through Disko Bugt to Davis Strait (Fig. 1). Estimates of the iceberg production are in the range of 35 ± 10 km3 ice per year, more than 10% of the entire calf-ice production of the Inland Ice (e.g. Bauer l968; Bindschadler 1984). The icefjord into which Sermeq Kujalleq calves is Kangia, best known in glaciological literature as Jakobshavn Isfjord. Spectacular changes of the glacier were observed during 2002 and 2003 at the same time as it was nominated for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List under the name ‘Ilulissat Icefjord’

Towards an assessment of the balance state of the Greenland Ice Sheet

The climate of Europe is strongly influenced by heat transport by ocean currents flowing from equatorial regions towards the Arctic (Clark et al. 2002). During recent years, research has been increasingly focused on factors affecting this circulation, e.g. the freshwater budget of the Arctic which is influenced by glacial meltwater from North and East Greenland outlet glaciers (Linthout et al. 2000, Mayer et al. 2000). Furthermore, the climate is affected by snow cover that, apart from its contribution to the freshwater budget, provides feedback effects in that it reflects most of the solar radiation. Apart from Arctic sea-ice cover, the Greenland Ice Sheet is the largest permanent ice- and snow-covered area in the northern hemisphere, with an area of 1.67 ×106 km2 and by far the largest storage of ice with a volume of 2.93 × 106 km3 (Bamber et al. 2001). Most of the mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet (the least known mass-balance parameter) occurs in the marginal region of the ice sheet, which is also the area where the largest changes in albedo occur. The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) has for many years carried out research along the Greenland Ice Sheet margin to monitor changes of mass balance and melt conditions

Oceanic forcing of interannual and multidecadal climate variability in the southwestern Indian Ocean: evidence from a 160 year coral isotopic record (La Réunion, 55°E, 21°S)

We have developed a new 163-year bimonthly coral δ18O record from La Réunion (55°E, 21°S). Interannual variations in coral δ18O are coherent with the Southern Oscillation Index but not with regional sea surface temperature (SST). Correlations with the global SST field suggest more negative seawater δ18O (δ18Osw) during La Niña years. We propose that the signal results from changes in the strength of the South Equatorial Current and the Indonesian throughflow, which carry low salinity water. Multidecadal variations in coral δ18O are coherent with regional SST, but the sign is of opposite sense as expected from the coral δ18O-temperature relationship. This requires multidecadal changes in salinity large enough to overprint the SST contribution in the coral δ18O record. Our results suggest that multidecadal salinity variations result from modulations in the transport of the South Equatorial Current, which varies in response to the surface wind field and/or the Indonesian throughflow