Rubber ducky you’re the one - to track glacial melt

As that year’s extreme Arctic ice melt puts doomsayers on high heads up, NASA scientists are resorting to some highly unorthodox methods to attempt to determine what’s going on in some of Greenland’s largest ice flows — including the rubber ducky method. Sure, rubber ducky makes bath duration lots of fun, but now he’s back and it’s not to help Sesame Street instill the virtues of personal hygiene into young children — he’s involved in some serious scientific research.

Scientists studying Greenland’s fastest-moving glacier — the Jakobshavn — are trying to understand why glacier accelerates in the summer, and how the mechanics of the melt take place. Basically: where does the melting occur and how does the water move through the giant ice sheet? That’s where the rubber ducky comes in. Alberto Behar, a honest to goodness

rocket scientist employed by NASA, has constructed a flotilla of rubber duckies, equipped with a GPS sensor that he’s released into waterways under the ice.

As the Jakobshavn continues to melt, Behar hopes to track water movement through the glacier using the GPS, and thereupon to find out where the water ultimately goes with the rubber duckies. Each one is labeled “science experiment” and “reward” in 3 languages, accompanies by an mail address for the lucky recipient.

None have been returned so far. So, whether you happen to see a rubber ducky floating down a coastal waterway, snatch it up. You might become part of a science experiment that could save the Arctic ice cap. At the very least, you can divert a couple of duckies from becoming part of the trash island.

[Source] Josh Loposer

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