What caused this mysterious wave in the Arctic Circle?

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA’s Landsat 9 satellite captured an image of a mysterious wave arc in an ethereal fjord filled with icebergs deep within the Arctic Circle.

Although several researchers have proposed explanations for the mysterious wave, we will probably never know what actually happened, warns the LiveScience. The curious arc was formed, more specifically, in the Itilliarsuup Kangerlua fjord, in Greenland.

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This fjord is part of the Uummannaq fjord system, in the west of the country, about 740 km from the capital Nuuk. The channel is about 2.6 km long, narrow and was carved by two glaciers, Sisoortartukassak and Kangilleq, separated by a small island at the base of the fjord, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.

In summer, the surface of the fjord is littered with thousands of small iceberg fragments released from the glaciers. This makes the water similar to a starscape seen by deep-field telescope imaging when viewed from above.

“Weird” wave crosses fjord in Greenland

• According to the LiveSciencethe most prominent feature in the image is the thin white arch that crosses the fjord;
• The Earth Observatory indicates that the arc is probably a displacement wave that moved up the fjord and away from the ice masses;
• The wave could have been caused by a huge chunk of ice that broke off from the Kangilleq glacier and fell into the water;
• In this way, a wave was formed similar to those that form when we throw a stone into a still lake.

“To me, it looks like a wave caused by ice breaking,” Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Earth Observatory. The arc’s “perfect shape” and wave orientation are similar to calving events observed on other glaciers, he continued.

Dan Shugar, a geomorphologist at the University of Calgary, and Mike Wood, a glaciologist at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, in California (USA), also believe that the arch was the result of an ice breakup event, the Earth Observatory reported.