Ocean water is reaching beneath Greenland’s glaciers, where tides move through the grounding zone and help melt the ice from below. On Petermann Glacier, scientists deploy high-resolution radar instruments to track these hidden changes over time and measure how far seawater can penetrate beneath ice that is still grounded.
The mission unfolds in severe cold, unstable terrain, and heavily crevassed ice, where every instrument must be installed before the aircraft departs. From Petermann to Jakobshavn, the documentary examines why the boundary between land, ice, and ocean is critical to glacier dynamics, and why direct measurements are essential for understanding Greenland’s changing ice and its contribution to sea-level rise.
Documentary: The Ultimate Ice Mission - Episode 2
Director: Florent Muller
Production: Auxyma (2023)
#greenland #greenlandglaciers #glaciermelt #petermannglacier #groundingzone #fieldscience #climatechange #sealevelrise