GreenFjordFIBER: Submarine Distributed Acoustic– and Temperature Sensing (DAS/DTS) along the Calving Front of a Greenlandic Tidewater Outlet Glacier, 2023

### Access

Data files can be accessed via: https://arcticdata.io/data/10.18739/A28W3846R

### Overview

Calving fronts of Greenland’s tidewater outlet glaciers are the nexus where atmospheric and oceanic forcings on the cryosphere condense. Dynamic processes acting on these calving fronts, such as iceberg calving, submarine melt, meltwater plume dynamics, and internal wave activity, may not only impact future tidewater glacier evolution but control the stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

To study these processes, we deployed a subsea fiber-optic cable along the calving front of Eqalorutsit Kangilliit Sermiat in South Greenland. By utilizing the optical fibers for combined Distributed Acoustic- and Temperature- Sensing (DAS and DTS), we turn the cable into a linear array of thousands of strain and temperature sensing sections. This array of sensors allows to study the seismo-acoustic and thermal wavefield along the calving front, carrying information about dynamic processes such as ice fracturing, calving, subglacial discharge, submarine melt, calving-induced tsunamis and transient internal waves, as well as long-term trends in the fjord thermal stratification.

Gräff, D., Lipovsky, B.P., Vieli, A. et al. Calving-driven fjord dynamics resolved by seafloor fibre sensing. Nature 644, 404–412 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09347-7