June 6, 2022 - Springtime Thaw in Ungava Bay
Ugava
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Sitting along the northern coastline of Quebec, Canada, Ungava Bay is a
funnel-shaped, shallow body of water that lies south of the Hudson
Strait, east of the Ungava Peninsula, and west of the Torngat
Mountains. Thanks to its northern location, ice begins to form on
Ungava Bay in November and typically stays through June. Because the
chilly waters remain ice-free in the summer and early fall, the copious
ice that covers the Bay in winter is first-year ice and, thanks to the
extremely high tides and strong currents, the ice tends to be “rubble”
ice— a type of ice made up of a jumble of ice fragments that cover the
water without any particular order.
On June 2, 2022, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of
ice on Ungava Bay. In the image, a thin layer of winter’s snow and ice
still covers the mainland of Quebec (south) while, to the north, Baffin
Island wears a mantle of winter white. Some fast ice (ice connected to
the shoreline) remains and copious rubble ice floats on the waters of
the Bay, but large areas of open water are visible off most of the
coastal areas and around Akpatok Island, in the center of the image.
Accessible only by air, Akpatok Island rises out of the water as sheer
cliffs that soar 500 to 800 feet (150 to 243 meters) above the sea
surface. The island is an important sanctuary for cliff-nesting
seabirds. In the winter, numerous ice floes around the island attract
walruses and whales, making Akpatok a traditional hunting ground for
native Inuit people.
Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 6/2/2022
Resolutions: 1km (369 KB), 500m (1021.7 KB), 250m (837.6
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=2022-06-06
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