And it tolled for 9 days!
Climate change is increasingly predisposing polar regions to large landslides. Tsunamigenic landslides have occurred recently in Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat), but none have been reported from the eastern fjords. In September 2023, we detected the start of a 9-day-long, global 10.88-millihertz (92-second) monochromatic very-long-period (VLP) seismic signal, originating from East Greenland. In this study, we demonstrate how this event started with a glacial thinning–induced rock-ice avalanche of 25 × 106 cubic meters plunging into Dickson Fjord, triggering a 200-meter-high tsunami. Simulations show that the tsunami stabilized into a 7-meter-high long-duration seiche with a frequency (11.45 millihertz) and slow amplitude decay that were nearly identical to the seismic signal. An oscillating, fjord-transverse single force with a maximum amplitude of 5 × 1011 newtons reproduced the seismic amplitudes and their radiation pattern relative to the fjord, demonstrating how a seiche directly caused the 9-day-long seismic signal. Our findings highlight how climate change is causing cascading, hazardous feedbacks between the cryosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere.
Shorter summary: a glacier in Greenland collapsed catastrophically in a fjord, setting the water sloshing back and forth with enough force that seismologists all around the world could detect the clock-like movement.
Better summary: Someone who knows the geology explains the event and all the terms on Bluesky.
The thinning ice sheets in Greenland led to oscillating waves, 100 meters tall, bouncing between the rock walls of a fjord. Fortunately, no one was there to witness it. Or if they were, they didn’t survive it.
Recreational boating not recommended here. Surfing is right out.
Isn’t it exciting, just waiting for another unexpected side effect of our slow destruction of the planet? As if the predictable disasters aren’t enough!
Even if this event had a catastrophic result nothing would change. Why? See comment below.
Jane Caroline Napier – Why are we not all shitting ourselves about the climate crisis? Oh right, a lot of us are but we don’t matter because billionaires need to be able to continue to use fossil fuels. Or camp out on Mars. Or dim the sun. Bastards.
Kinda like giving acetaminophen for the fever (no killing the snail darter with a hammer) while letting the underlying infection rampage (pollute the stream all you want).
Been saying since I was 14 that we as a species would cause our own extinction.
I hate being right all the time.
I actually read the Science article when it came out, saved it, and forgot about it. I know this because when I read this post, I got the Science article link, and started to save it, and then found I already had! It just shows that it isn’t enough to publish news, you have to publicize it as well.
Apparently some cruise ships take this route, and it was sheer luck that none was there in those 9 days. Mother Nature is about to teach us all some harsh lessons, and Mars won’t save Elno, just as his superyacht won’t save Bezos in 100m waves either.
Meanwhile, my Congressional delegation is all in on helping Trump amp up coal, even while getting rid of those jerks at the CDC who screen the miners for black lung disease. I’m just finishing up research and starting writing on a blog post showing just how far coal has fallen, mostly due to wind solar and natural gas being cheaper. I thought these people were all about the free market. (I have a few more things up at sciencefornonscientistsblog.wordpress.com–I took a long break after Project 2025 because it was too depressing. Incidentally (having covered the effects on NOAA), is anyone else dissatisfied with the weather app on your phone? Both it and the NOAA site insisted that the wind was coming from the south or southeast yesterday, while it was clear from the flags in front of businesses that it was blowing from the northeast.)
In 2005, Finnish scifi author and environmentalist Risto Isomäki published an apocalyptic near-future novel centered on this exact process, except on a much larger scale. A collapse of a large part of the Greenlandic glacier results in a North Atlantic megatsunami washing hundreds of kilometers inland, plus sea level rising instantly by several meters. Wikipedia tells me that the novel, titled Sands of Sarasvati, is available in English translation, both plain text and graphic novel version.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risto_Isom%C3%A4ki
Martha and the Vandellas: nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide. We can play and sing it as loud and often as we want, but, the destruction caused by the billionaires funding the rtwing xtian terrorists running government won’t even hear it.
I’m not being paranoid. Just look around you at all the signs. The death spiral may slow or speed up, but they won’t allow it to be stopped.
Every few years there is an article about the periodic large landslides in the Azores sending a 10m tsunami over NYC based on an Australian paper that treated a slide as a solid block. In reality, the slides are in fine volcanic ash (why it slides) and will heavily stir in the water dissipating the energy – the resulting tsunami could reach 1 foot onshore, decimating any sand castles on the beach near the water.