February 26, 2021 - Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf

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   Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf
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   The Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf sits along the edge of Queen Maud Land in
   eastern Antarctica. It is fed by the part of the Western Ragnhild
   Glacier, which slowly pushes ice over the ocean as it creeps forward
   and protected by an ice promontory to the west and by the Derwael Ice
   Rice in the east. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
   (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of
   the Roi Baudouin ice shelf on February 24, 2021.

   Like all ice shelves, Roi Baudouin clings fast to the coastline as it
   floats over ocean water. Along protected coastlines, ice shelves can
   survive for hundreds—even thousands of years. They tend to have dynamic
   lives, expanding when ice oozes over them from glaciers that feed them
   and shrinking when icebergs calve from their edges. Ice shelves also
   change with the seasons. During frigid winters, the sea ice thickens
   and freezing expands, while the sunshine and rising temperatures of the
   Antarctic summer encourages melting.

   The Antarctic summer melt season started December 12, 2020 and ended
   February 15, 2021. On February 24, the National Snow and Ice Data
   Center (NSIDC) reported that a first look at the 2020-2021 season
   points to an intense melt season in the northernmost and southernmost
   Antarctic Peninsula, but generally blow-average melting elsewhere on
   the continent. Coastal East Antarctica, in particular, recorded cold
   temperatures and had significantly below average melting. The report
   states “This late in the melt season the ice surfaces of the Amery and
   Roi Baudouin Ice Shelves are usually flooded with extensive meltwater
   in the form of flooded snow, lakes, and even rivers. However, such
   features are absent this year.”

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Terra
   Date Acquired: 2/24/2021
   Resolutions:  1km (103 KB),  500m (259.9 KB),  250m (623.3 KB)
   Bands Used: 1,4,3
   Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2021-02-26
 
