Sometimes in life you just have go primitive and when a high-tech sensory-probe failed to produce any information regarding the path that glacier water takes, Alberto Behar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory did just that.
Behar has been researching the worlds most rapidly melting and moving glacier – Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier (Jakobshavn Isbræ) – and hopes to track where the water flows (e.g. possibly to Baffin Bay). Currently the path of glacier water flow is a complete mystery: in the summer the glacier melts and gathers into pools forming low-level lakes and rivers. The water then slips into moulins or crevasses found on the glacier and from there it is one big scientific mystery.
Researchers are frustrated because in theory it is quite simple, but it has proven to be a challenge for sophisticated technology as the probes continues to remain silent by not producing data for the scientists.
So what now?
They decided to bring in the big guns and purchased 90 rubber duckies. Behar labeled them with an email address and in the English, Danish and Inuit languages wrote “science experiment - reward.” He hopes that fishermen or the locals will find the ducks and email him with their coordinates. So far, Behar has not heard a squeak, however not all hope lost as the water in the Northeast of Canada and Greenland freezes in the winter, so it is possible that he will hear something in the upcoming summer.
Jakobshavn moves at about 20 to 22 metres per day and is expected to accelerate over the upcoming years due to global warming.
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