Satellites Detect Seasonal Pulses in Earth's Glaciers-And It Looks Like a Giant Heartbeat - SnowBrains

"The Malaspina Glacier in southeastern Alaska is so massive that its ice spreads across the coastal plain like pancake batter-but new NASA analysis shows it behaves less like a frozen slab and more like a living, pulsing system. Using millions of satellite images collected between 2014 and 2022, NASA scientists have discovered that glaciers around the world speed up and slow down in seasonal rhythms that resemble a giant heartbeat, with Malaspina offering one of the most dramatic examples anywhere on Earth."

"Malaspina, the planet's largest piedmont glacier, flows out of the Saint Elias Mountains and fans out across lowland terrain. Though it appears nearly motionless to the naked eye, NASA's new global analysis shows it consistently surges in spring and eases back into a crawl by winter-a pattern that repeats year after year. The research, led by glaciologists Chad Greene and Alex Gardner at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, analyzed subtle glacier motion using optical and radar satellite images."

""Earth has over 200,000 glaciers, and we're watching all of them closely," Gardner said. "It's no surprise that with this much data, a pattern started to emerge.""

Scientists analyzed millions of optical and radar satellite images from 2014–2022 to track glacier surface feature movement month by month. An algorithm from the ITS_LIVE project mapped subtle ice motion by following crevasses and debris fields that act as natural fingerprints. Results reveal consistent, global seasonal rhythms: many glaciers accelerate in spring and decelerate by winter, with Malaspina providing a striking example. Malaspina fans out from the Saint Elias Mountains across lowland terrain and appears nearly motionless to the eye despite repeating annual surges. The comprehensive, high-resolution mapping covers glaciers worldwide rather than isolated sites.

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