On September 16, 2023, a massive landslide occurred in Dickson Fjord, northeastern Greenland. It was triggered by a series of factors, including the glacial debuttressing due to climate change. Greenland, being highly sensitive to rising temperatures, has experienced accelerated glacial retreat and destabilization in recent years, making landslides more frequent and severe.
Background
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On September 16th, 2023 at 12:35 UTC, a 25.5 Mm3 (3.34×1019 cu yd) rockslide occurred on the slope of Dickson Fjord in Northeast Greenland.[1][2] The rockslide impacted a gully glacier, leading to a rock and ice avalanche that entered the fjord causing an up to 200 m (660 ft) high tsunami and subsequent waves up to 110 m high, with observable runup up to 100 km (62 mi) away.[3][4][5] Svennevig et al. (2024) recreated the dynamics of the landslide using the available seismic data and estimate it achieved a peak velocity of 42 meteres per second.[5] The initial failure triggering the landslide was 150 m thick, 480 m wide and 600 m long, made of a large block of metamorphic rock.[5] The event produced an unprecedented very long period (VLP) seismic event observable on seismic stations worldwide for up to nine days.[6] The wave was caught in a narrow fjord which caused the wave to continue to slosh back and forth off the walls for the entire time,[7] resulting in a global seismic vibration, picked up all over the world, that was first confused with an earthquake.[8]
Greenland’s geography and climate make it prone to natural disasters, particularly landslides and tsunamis caused by glacial activity and permafrost thaw. The region has seen an increase in the frequency and severity of such events as a result of the ongoing warming of the Arctic. Rising temperatures are accelerating the melting of ice sheets and glaciers, as well as causing permafrost, which stabilizes mountainous terrain, to thaw. This has increased the instability of Greenland’s coastal regions.[3][6][9]
See also
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This article incorporates text by Svennevig, K., Hicks, S., Lecocq, T., Mangeney, A., Hibert, C., Korsgaard, N., Lucas, A., Keiding, M., Marboeuf, A., Schippkus, S., Rysgaard, S., Boone, W., Gibbons, S., Cook, K., Glimsdal, S., Løvholt, F., Spagnolo, M., Assink, J., Harcourt, W., and Malet, J.-P. and the VLPGreenland available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
This article incorporates text by Angela Carrillo‐Ponce, Sebastian Heimann, Gesa M. Petersen, Thomas R. Walter, Simone Cesca, Torsten Dahm available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
References
edit- ^ Carrington, Damian (2024-09-12). "Entire Earth vibrated for nine days after climate-triggered mega-tsunami". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-09-21.
- ^ Svennevig, Kristian; Hicks, Stephen; Lecocq, Thomas; Mangeney, Anne; Hibert, Clément; Korsgaard, Niels; Lucas, Antoine; Keiding, Marie; Marboeuf, Alexis (2024-03-11). "Interdisciplinary insights into an exceptional giant tsunamigenic rockslide on September 16th 2023 in Northeast Greenland". doi:10.5194/egusphere-egu24-20066. Retrieved 2024-10-07.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ a b Paddison, Laura (2024-09-13). "A landslide triggered a 650-foot mega-tsunami in Greenland. Then came something inexplicable". CNN. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
- ^ Carrillo-Ponce, Angela; Heimann, Sebastian; Petersen, Gesa M.; Walter, Thomas R.; Cesca, Simone; Dahm, Torsten (2024-07-01). "The 16 September 2023 Greenland Megatsunami: Analysis and Modeling of the Source and a Week-Long, Monochromatic Seismic Signal". The Seismic Record. 4 (3): 172–183. doi:10.1785/0320240013. ISSN 2694-4006.
- ^ a b c Petley, Dave (2024-09-18). "The 16 September 2023 landslide at Dickson Fjord in Greenland". Eos. Retrieved 2024-10-10.
- ^ a b "Greenland landslide caused freak wave that shook Earth for nine days". New Scientist. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
- ^ Svennevig, Kristian; Hicks, Stephen P.; Forbriger, Thomas; Lecocq, Thomas; Widmer-Schnidrig, Rudolf; Mangeney, Anne; Hibert, Clément; Korsgaard, Niels J.; Lucas, Antoine; Satriano, Claudio; Anthony, Robert E.; Mordret, Aurélien; Schippkus, Sven; Rysgaard, Søren; Boone, Wieter (2024-09-13). "A rockslide-generated tsunami in a Greenland fjord rang Earth for 9 days". Science. 385 (6714): 1196–1205. doi:10.1126/science.adm9247. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 39264997.
- ^ "Massive Greenland tsunami shook Earth for nine days". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2024-09-18.
- ^ Matti, Stephanie; Cullen, Miriam; Reichardt, Uta; Vigfúsdóttir, Andrea (2023-02-15). "Planned relocation due to landslide-triggered tsunami risk in recently deglaciated areas". International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 86: 103536. doi:10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103536. ISSN 2212-4209.