Property:Extended movie description
From CSDMS
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Meteorological offices worldwide forecast ocean wave heights for the shipping and fisheries industry. In the United States, NOAA's National Weather Service provides the wave forecasts. Just like in weather forecasting, scientists run numerical models to make these predictions.
This movie shows wave height calculations of a wave model called ‘WAVEWATCH III’. The movie shows 3 hourly model output over October 1st – October 31st, 2012.
On October 22nd 2012, the storm system Sandy started forming in the Caribbean Sea and moved towards the Antilles while intensifying. By Oct 24th, Sandy became a hurricane and made landfall near Kingston, Jamaica. Passing over land weakened the storm for some time, but winds picked up and hit Cuba and the Bahamas on Oct 25th. Again, the storm system briefly weakened and then strengthened again. On Oct 29th, Hurricane Sandy took an unusual course and started curving North-Northwest and moved ashore in New Jersey, affecting New York City.
The entire storm system was exceptionally large with high winds spanning a diameter of 1800 km (1100 miles). This large diameter meant really high waves could develop.
The WAVEWATCH III simulations show that the highest significant waves were 13.7m in the open ocean. At the New York harbor entrance, where some of the highest waves have already broken in shallower water, a buoy recorded wave heights of over 9m (32 ft).
In addition to the high local waves, storm surge increases the water level during hurricanes. Increasing water levels are caused both by the low pressure associated with a hurricane and with the water being pushed towards shore and being piled up. The storm surge for Hurricane Sandy increased sea level an additional 10ft near Manhattan, making the waves more impactful and causing much coastal flooding.
High winds, rain and snow, storm surge flooding and high waves caused loss of lives and extensive damage. Over the affected countries almost 150 people were killed. In the USA alone, about 570,000 buildings were heavily damaged. Many beaches along the Eastern US seaboard were eroded by the high waves. Throughout 24 states, there were 8.6 million power outages, trains did not run anymore and 20,000 flights were cancelled. The storm caused extensive flooding in lower Manhattan
Notable Features
• The storm system Sandy traveled over the Greater Antilles, Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas and then curved back Northwest to make landfall near New York City.
• Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record with a diameter of 1800 km.
• Wind speeds during Sandy were as high as 185 km/hr
• WAVEWATCH III calculated wave heights as high as 13.7m.
• Many lives were lost, approximately 148 people were killed in the affected region.
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Meteorological offices worldwide forecast ocean wave heights for the shipping and fisheries industry. In the United States, NOAA's National Weather Service provides the wave forecasts. Just like in weather forecasting, scientists run numerical models to make these predictions.
This movie shows wave power calculations of one of the most commonly used wave models, called ‘WAVEWATCH III®’. WAVEWATCH III® uses global and regional wind data to calculate wind-driven waves every three hours. The model also takes into account the travel of waves beyond the edges of a storm system, the waves still continue to advance even when winds are diminished. These waves decrease in steepness and are called ‘swells’ and keep traveling for large distances. Swells propagate to faraway shorelines where there is no wind.
Notable Features
During the northern hemisphere winter, the most intense wave activity is located in the central North Pacific south of the Aleutian Islands, and in the central North Atlantic south of Iceland.
During the southern hemisphere winter, intense wave activity circumscribes the pole at around 50°S, with 5 m significant wave heights typical in the southern Indian Ocean.
You can identify the areas of coast that receive high wave power, like Australia, the West-coast of Southern France, Spain and Portugal, and the West Coast of the USA.
If you see this pattern it comes as no surprise that the current engineering experiments to harvest wave energy as a source of alternative energy are in those regions (Portugal, Orkney Islands, Scotland, Oregon, USA and along the Australian coast near Perth). +
Meteorological offices worldwide forecast ocean wave heights for the shipping and fisheries industry. In the United States, NOAA's National Weather Service provides the wave forecasts. Just like in weather forecasting, scientists run numerical models to make these predictions.
Wind blowing across the ocean surface generates most ocean waves. Waves just transmit energy; the water itself does not travel with the passing of the energy. The water particles simply move up and backwards, up and forward, down and forward and finally down and backward with the passing of a wave form. This motion gives ocean waves their name: orbital waves.
This movie shows wave height calculations of one of the most commonly used predictive models, called ‘WAVEWATCH III®’. WAVEWATCH III® uses global and regional wind data to calculate wind-driven waves every three hours.
We measure wave height, H, as the distance between the wave crest and trough. Note that waves come in fields containing a large variety of heights; the wave height distribution. To describe the wave field with a single number scientists use the ‘Significant Wave Height’. The Significant Wave Height Hs, is the mean wave height of the one-third highest waves in the wave field. This measure is the closest to what a sailor on a ship would estimate as ‘the average wave height’. Apparently our eyes are drawn to see the larger waves. This movie shows the significant wave height every 3 hours, worldwide for the year 2012.
Notable Features
• During the northern hemisphere winter, the most intense wave activity is located in the central North Pacific south of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska and in the central North Atlantic south of Iceland.
• During the southern hemisphere winter, intense wave activity circumscribes the South Pole at around 50°S, with 5 m significant wave heights being typical in the southern Indian Ocean.
• In the summer and early fall, it is peak hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, because the temperature difference between the continent and ocean is the largest. The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season was very active; there were 19 named tropical storms and hurricanes. The earliest storms happened already in May 2012.
• Hurricane Sandy was the deadliest and costliest hurricane of 2012, it formed on October 22nd 2012. In total, the 2012 storms caused 355 known fatalities and nearly $71 billion in damage.
• The highest predicted significant wave height was 17m in 2012, but much higher waves occur occasionally in the open ocean.
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Ocean conditions near Galveston, Texas shortly before the landfall of Hurricane Ike.
The swell generated by this storm event can be seen by following this link to WAVEWATCH III^TM run. The storm is visible in the Gulf of Mexico on September 13th and 14th.
https://csdms.colorado.edu/wiki/Movie:WAVEWATCH_III_model_run_Sep_2008_to_Nov_2008 +
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One can see a big block calving of a tidewater glacier front. A tidewater glacier ends in a body of water, in this case Disko Bay in Western Greenland. The ice that calves of the glacier front forms floating icebergs.
Calving happens rapidly. One can often hear a crackling or booming noise and then see the ice tumble into the ocean. The ice mass can be extremely large, and this produce significant waves.
This movie was made from a boat sailing through the fjord. +
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Overview of the tsunami affecting the bay and city of Sendai, Japan. There is footage of ships being rolled over, cars being picked up and flooding of the nearby farmfield and city.
It is estimated that the tsunami was about 3-4 m high when it hit the shoreline, and it traveled upto 10 km inland.
This tsunami was generated by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake in the Pacific Ocean on March 11th, 2011. The epicenter of the earthquake was 130km offshore of Sendai. +
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Pomme de Terre River incision/aggradation history +
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Progressive incision of tidal channel networks in a theoretical domain, which is assumed to be surrounded by channels. The initial outlet is set to be in the middl of the lower boundary, the two other inlets are determined by internal dynamics.
The water surface gradients are driving erosion, and headward incision takes place as long as local shear stress due to tidal expansion exceeds a threshold stress. +
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River meander development with respect to time in an area of relatively low slope angle. +
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Rivers draining the West Greenland Ice Sheet are highly dynamic braided rivers. The water is of a milky color, because of the glacial flour it carries in suspension. In addition, the flow velocities are high and sound of coarse, cobble-sized bedload clashing into each other at the bed is evident. Banks and bars consist of a mix of cobbles, pebbles and fine sandy to silty material. The river is shallow. +
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Sand ripple migration, shown at various speeds. The ripples are generally climbing and processes such as avalanching, scour pit formation and merging of bedforms can be seen. +
Sheet flow style bed load transportation with colored marker stones. In this form of bed load transport a portion of the bed moves as a unified sheet. +
Shore line modeling taking coastal erosion and depositional processes into account. Beach profile follows the sea level and barrier islands form during transgression. +
Shore line modeling without coastal processes. The beach profile does not migrate and barrier islands do not form. +
Shoreline Transgression & Regression. This movie shows the relationship between delta building and basin subsidence. The sediment make up of this experiment is fine grained quartz and coal sand. The lighter coal sand moves farther into the basin, acting as a proxy for finer grained sediment in real systems. Key features and events are labeled throughout the movie. +
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Simulation of ANUGA, a hydrodynamics model. This simulation used data of many rainfall gauges in the Boulder Creek watershed. It then calculated the infiltration of the water, and the remaining water drained as runoff to the main tributary streams and ultimately North and South Boulder Creek into teh Eastern Plains. There are two pulses of rainfall visible moving through the system. +
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Simulation of fluvial incision in the shelf during a glacial-interglacial sea level cycle. This simulation represents the East Coast of the US, i.e. close to Chesapeak Bay and Delaware Bay. During lowstand, at glacial maximum the entire shelf is actively incised and reworked by fluvial systems. +
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Simulation of hydrodynamics with ANUGA. +
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Simulation of river bedform by large eddy simulation (LES), and sediment as spherical particles.
Related papers are:
doi: 10.1002/wrcr.20457
doi: 10.1002/wrcr.20303
doi: 10.1029/2012WR011911 +
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Standard river plume formation without the effects of coastal processes. The the color scale shows the separation of different grain sizes where larger, heavier particles settle out first, and spread on the sea floor. +
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Subglacial discharge simulated for Gornergletscher: arrows depict discharge in the distributed system, blue shows discharge in channels. +
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The Cook Inlet, an estuary adjacent to Northern Pacific Ocean experiences very large tidal range. Dr. Mark Johnson at University of Alaska-Fairbank (UAF) and Dr. Andrey Proshuntinsky at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), applied the Finite-Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM) to this environment to better understand the dramatic tides present.
https://csdms.colorado.edu/wiki/Model:FVCOM +
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The HSTAR model is developed to investigate the morphological change in large=-scale river systems. It uses the shallow water equations and nested sediment transport and erosion algorithms to control the changes in the river due to varying water transport. The model has a unique ability to mimick the growth of vegetation on river bars that are not inundated anymore.
This simulation runs for 350 years (in modeled time) and you can see the river system evolve. First there are just mid channel bars, then a river with multiple channel treads evolves. This pattern is commonly observed in nature (for example in the Amazon Basin). You can also see bend migration and bar cutt-offs once the river system rreaches a more stable pattern. +
The HSTAR model is developed to investigate the morphological change in large-scale river systems. It uses the shallow water equations and nested sediment transport and erosion algorithms to control the changes in the river due to varying water transport. The model has a unique ability to mimick the growth of vegetation on river bars that are not inundated anymore. This simulation runs for 350 years (in modeled time) and you can see the river system evolve. This simulation is set up for a coarse-grained sediment (grainsize 0.4 mm).
In the simulation mid channel bars form and persist. This pattern is commonly observed in nature (perhaps a close example is the Brahmaputra river). You can also see bar migration, compound bar evolution (where bars are merging). New deposition happens in the leeward side of vegetated bars, where flow velocities are lower.
These simulations have a feedback between the growth of vegetation and bar accretion- the vegetated bars will experience slower flow rates and thus more sediment can settle on top of them. +
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The Rio Puerco is a major tributary to the Rio Grande in New Mexico, USA. It is presently an incised arroyo system, with ephemeral flow. Significant river flow only occurs when large rain storms hit the drainage basin, in other times of the year it is a dry river bed with stagnant pools.
The incised river valley has extensive coverage of Tamarisk Trees, an invasive species. In 2003 a section of the river system was sprayed with herbicides and vegetation died off. These simulations investigate the effect of varying vegetation coverage in the river system.
In August 2006, a large rain event occurred and a peak flow was observed at the river observation stations. The simulations show how the river water depth for those flood conditions vary at 0% vegetation, at 10% and at 20% vegetation coverage. You can see the channel system incised and with a single thread channel that meanders and then water spilling into chute channels and adjacent floodplain basins. +
The Rio Puerco is a major tributary to the Rio Grande in New Mexico, USA. It is presently an incised arroyo system, with ephemeral flow. Significant river flow only occurs when large rain storms hit the drainage basin, in other times of the year it is a dry river bed with stagnant pools. The incised river valley has extensive coverage of Tamarisk Trees, an invasive species. In 2003 a section of the river system was sprayed with herbicides and vegetation died off. These simulations investigate the effect of varying vegetation coverage in the river system.
In August 2006, a large rain event occurred and a peak flow was observed at the river observation stations. The simulations show how the sedimentation for those flood conditions vary at 0% vegetation, at 10% and at 20% vegetation coverage. You can see the channel system eroded deeply (red) in the barren river system and how both the sedimentation (in blue) and erosion (in red) is much reduced in the more vegetated floodplain. +
The Rio Puerco is a tributary to the Rio Grande in New Mexico. It is a an 'ephemeral' river, meaning that it only runs water once there are larger rainstorms in its watershed, in dry times the riverbed is dry or has only small stagnant ponds of water. The small river is incised into its old floodplain and forms a small arroyo system.
The river has been monitored already for a really long time, there has been a gauging station at teh location of the movie (at the Santa Fe railroad crossing) since 1913.
This movie shows the incised river system. You can see from the photo what the river looks like in dry conditions (April 2014). The movie shows the floodwater in the incised arroyo, the 8m-12m tall Tamarix trees barely stick out of the water. On September 15, 2015, the water even overtopped the valley and gushed into the nearby farm field, and water overflowed the highway.
As you can see, the floodwater is extremely muddy. This small river was a major sediment source into the Rio Grande in the early 20th century. It impacted the downstream reservoir at Elephant Butte. Tamarix, an invasive tree species, was introduced in the 1930's to reduce the sediment load of this river. +
The Rio Puerco is a tributary to the Rio Grande in New Mexico. It is a an 'ephemeral' river, meaning that it only runs water once there are larger rainstorms in its watershed, in dry times the riverbed is dry or has only small stagnant ponds of water. The small river is incised into its old floodplain and forms a small arroyo system. The river has been monitored already for a really long time, there has been a gauging station near the location of the movie (at the Santa Fe railroad crossing) since 1913. The flood of 2013 was exceptionally high.
This movie shows the water running in the nearby old floodplain. You can see from the photo what this location looks like in dry conditions (April 2014). On September 15, 2015, the water overtopped the incised riverbed and gushed into the nearby farm field, and water overflowed the highway.
The river water once it is in the floodplain and not in its main channel experiences more friction and flow is not as fast anymore. Still, the water has enough carrying capacity to transport fine sediment. +
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The animation shows the modeled evolution of the subglacial drainage system and associated ice sliding speed for a catchment south of Jakobshavn Isbræ (Greenland) in 2011. The left panel shows contours of the hydraulic potential and the network of channels; the right panel shows the sliding speed and channels; and the bottom panel shows the meltwater forcing. +
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The movie shows a small river confluence in Illinois. The figure shows the bathymetry and dimensions, it is a small system (~8 m wide, 0.65m deep). It is an asymmetrical confluence with concordant bed, the velocity and momentum (rQU) ratios are ~1.0. In that case, the mixing layer development is driven by difference in directions of the streams. Other simulation conditions are: - Re~166,000 (D=0.4m U=0.44 m/s), Fr=0.24 - Maximum scour depth 2.92D
In the movie, obvious eddies develop at the mixing interface, they propagate downstream, complete mixing is not reached in the simulated stretch. +
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These two movies show flow field around two common structures in rivers.
Groynes are one of the most effective approaches to stabilize eroding banks and to sustain navigable channels at proper depth. They are utilized in river bank protection as well as restoration projects (e.g., restore fish habitat in degraded streams). This movie shows the case of accidental pollution, a series of groynes can substantially modify the dispersion of the pollutant cloud in the river reach.
Bridge Pillars that support the structure change the flow field and promote local differences in sedimentation and erosion. This movie illustrates the shear stress around a bridge pier. +
These two movies show flow field around two common structures in rivers.
Groynes are one of the most effective approaches to stabilize eroding banks and to sustain navigable channels at proper depth. They are utilized in river bank protection as well as restoration projects (e.g., restore fish habitat in degraded streams). This movie shows the case of accidental pollution, a series of groynes can substantially modify the dispersion of the pollutant cloud in the river reach.
Bridge Pillars that support the structure change the flow field and promote local differences in sedimentation and erosion. This movie illustrates the shear stress around a bridge pier. +
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This animation follows global wave power as a function of waves for the months of January and February of the year 2000. +
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This animation is based on a historical flood in the Netherlands and shows the flood in the land between the Maas and Waal Rivers. As is apparent in the line graph at the bottom of the page the majority of the water came from a dike breach on the Waal River. Land elevation is shown in brown and water depth is shown in blue. +
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This animation is set up to mimick the evolution of a single channel delta forming into a marine basin with high wave climate. The incoming river sediment load goes very rapidly up over time (this is set up so as to simulate a change in climate, i.e. precipitation in the basin goes up). The parameter settings are not thought to be realistic necessarily, we are looking at an extreme case of change. Wave climate is defined as to have an incoming wave height of 1m, period of 6 s, asymmetry of incoming wave angles 0.4 (so a little weighted to the left), and a highness factor of 0.7 (higher proportion of unstable, >45 degrees, waves).
The Ebro delta is a very intriguing delta which, during recent centuries, has been controlled by both natural and man-induced factors. Deforestation of the Ebro drainage basin, by man, resulted in a fast progradation of the deltaic system until this century. Many dams were constructed along the river Ebro resulting in a drastically reduced river sediment discharge, with erosive processes now dominant in the shaping of the Ebro delta coastal area. In reality, the formation of the Ebro delta took place over 100-1000's of years. +
This animation shows results of a Delft3D simulation to study the effects of the passage of a strong cold front on the Wax Lake delta in Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana (USA). The model domain is 25 by 30km. The movie shows cumulative erosion and deposition due to passage of a number of cold fronts in 2008.
Cold fronts pass every 4-5 days during the winter. Many of the simulations for the Wax Lake in the repository are done for hurricanes, but these particular experiments explore the effects of a cold front. They may be smaller magnitude events, but they happen many times per winter season.
It is clear that erosion and sedimentation in the Wax lake delta is in the order of centimeters per event. This November-December 2008 cold fronts cause about 5 cm of deposition at the fronts of the outermost mouthbars. There is also accumulation near bifurcations, where the flow presumably slows down.
At the same time, certain local areas experience erosion due to the cold fronts (the blue spots). +
This animation shows results of a Delft3D simulation to study the effects of the passage of a strong cold front on the Wax Lake delta in Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana (USA). The model domain is 25 by 30km. The movie shows water level change due to passage of a strong cold front in December 2008. Cold fronts pass every 5-7 days during the winter. Many of the simulations for the Wax Lake in the repository are done for hurricanes, but these particular experiments explore the effects of a cold front. They may be smaller magnitude events, but they happen many times per winter season.
It is clear that water level changes dramatically in the Wax lake delta associated with a winter storm event. On December 9th 2008 the winter storm pushed the water onshore, causing a water level of about 1.5 m, around 3 times higher than average conditions and the entire delta became submerged. +
This animation shows results of a Delft3D simulation to study the effects of the pasage of a strong cold front on the Wax Lake delta in Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana (USA). The model domain is 25 by 30km. The movie shows salinity before, during and after the strongest cold front of 2008. Cold fronts pass every 4-5 days during the winter. Many of the simulations for the Wax Lake in the repository are done for hurricanes, but these particular experiments explore the effects of a cold front. They may be smaller magnitude events, but they happen many times per winter season.
Water in the Wax lake delta is relatively fresh, during the entire period there is continuous river discharge being fed into the delta system. The river discharge is more important during low tide and brackish water progrades into the delta during high tides under normal conditions. This is the pulsing of the system you can see in the beginning of the simulation. This December 2008 cold front brings more saline water close to the delta (the red color). It is clear that only the outermost bars of the delta front do get affected much by the higher salinity water. It is unlikely that these short events have a major effect on the wetland vegetation, whereas the simulation of hurricane Ike (also in the repository)killed much of the freshwater/brackish water tolerant species. +
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This animation shows the global temperature fluctuation through one calendar year. Temperature is measured in degrees Celsius and is visualized using a color scale where colder temperatures are represented by colder colors (blues and greens) and warmer temperatures are represented by warmer colors (yellows and reds). Temperatures were aggregated and averaged by month and geographic location. The global shift in temperature is due to the change in seasons caused by the tilt in the earth’s rotational axis. As the northern and southern hemispheres become closer to the sun (their respective summers) the monthly mean temperature increases. +
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This animation shows the river meander development on the Allier River near Chateau de Lys, France. This recreation was made from aerial photographs and maps from the years 1946, 1960, 1980, 1982, 1992, 1995 and 1997. +
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This animations integrates the state of the art knowledge about the retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet since the Last Glacial Maximum. +
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This clip is an interview with Prof. Bob Anderson, University of Colorado, it was posted in the Daily Camera, the Boulder newspaper.
Prof Anderson talks about a study on the northern coastline of Alaska midway between Point Barrow and Prudhoe Bay where the coast is eroding by 15m annually because of declining sea ice, warming seawater and increased wave activity.
A warmer Arctic with a longer sea-ice free season have led to the steady retreat of 15m average and 25m maximum a year of the 4m high bluffs --
frozen blocks of silt and peat containing 50 to 80 percent ice --. These blocks then topple into the Beaufort Sea during the summer months by a combination of large waves pounding the shoreline and warm seawater melting the base of the
bluffs. +
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This clip shows a tsunami front, loaded with debris, prograding fastly over agricultural fields and the nearby city of Sendai.
It is estimated that the tsunami was about 10 m high when it hit the shoreline, and it traveled upto 10 km inland.
This tsunami was generated by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake in the Pacific Ocean on March 11th, 2011. The epicenter of the earthquake was 130km offshore of Sendai. +
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This is a 3D model of delta growth. The initial sequence shows the growth of the delta as sediment is deposited seaward. The following sequences show cross sectional views of the formed delta. The color scale represents deposited sediment grain size where blue colors are larger grain sizes and reds are smaller grain sizes. +
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This is a coupled run of the HydroTrend River flux model and the Coastline Evolution model CEM. The run is not intended to simulate realistic conditions, but it is thought to be a proxy for the Nile delta. The simulation has two river draining to the coast; one has a wave field comming straight at it, the other wave field comes in under an angle. This results in different development; somewhat similar to the Rosetta and Damietta lobes of the Nile delta in Egypt.
For the Nile delta, the first run, kept all parameters constant as discussed above while changing only parameters found in the Wave and Avulsion component. The wave height was set to 1m, period of 6s, asymmetry of 0.4, and highness of 0.7. The avulsion component was set to have two rivers with no deviation, and was restricted to -60 and 70. This appeared somewhat similar to the real Nile with the major difference the angle of the rivers. +
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This is a high definition animation of global air circulation created by the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). It spans one calendar year and is comprised of hourly data. Cloud cover is generally shown in white with areas of precipitation shown in orange. There are many seasonal weather phenomenon visible in different regions of the globe at various times. They include monsoon seasons as well as the paths of winter storms in the northern hemisphere.
In the winter months for the northern hemisphere the storm track can be clearly seen as clouds carrying lots of moisture come south from Alaska and hit the Pacific Northwest. At the same time, in the southern hemisphere afternoon rain storms can be seen over much of South America and southern Africa.
As the seasons shift, the northward movement of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) can be seen, bringing with it the monsoon season to India and much of the east. At the same time the US hurricane season begins. These more local events can be seen forming in the Atlantic Ocean and getting pushed towards the East Coast of the US, occasionally making land fall and bringing rain. +
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This is a local news clip from Koat News, Alberquerque, New Mexico. It documents the damage that the small town of San Francisco sustained due to the flooding of the Rio Puerco in September 2013.
The Rio Puerco is a tributary to the Rio Grande in New Mexico. It is a dryland river and has streamflow only when there is major rain fall in its drainage area. In September 2013 an exceptionally high water occured, and the Rio Puerco overtopped its arroyo system and broke a levee.
The water ran into farm fields and damaged homes and local roads. One resident shows the water level rose over 2ft in his house. +
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This is a mission statement of LOICZ, land-ocean interactions in the coastal zone. LOICZ is an international organization working on policy making for the coastal zone worldwide. +
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This is a model coupling experiment where a simple block of uplifted sediments eroded by Child are pass off to SedFlux within the CMT environment. +
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This is a movie of sea ice pushing up the small drillling island Oooguruk on June 23rd, 2009. Oooguruk is man-made, it is located just offshore the Colville delta along the Beaufort Sea of Alaska.
The island was constructed as a base for a drill platform in 2006, it sits in ~4-5 ft of water depth. Its sides are at least 4,5m above sea level and even up to 9m.
The process is called ice encroachment; both due to 'ride-up' and 'pile-up'.
The ice blocks are over 4-5m, the gravel bags armouring the island can be seen, those are larger than 2 m. The ice pushes itself higher up against the side of the island. The ice push results likely from far-field movement. Nearshore sea ice in this region stayed well into July 2009, but movement of the ice already starts much earlier. +
