Global warming, which scientists have been increasingly talking about in recent years, is most noticeable in the Arctic. Climate change has a significant impact on the outlines of the coastline of the northern seas. Schoolchildren and students from the interregional project group RISKSAT under the guidance of Associate Professor at MAI, Candidate of Technical Sciences Aleksey Kucheyko shared an interesting observation with the Russian Geographical Society. Comparing satellite images of Franz Josef Land, they noted the complete disappearance of an ice formation, which most recently was a cape, and then became an island.
The RISKSAT group has been observing this object on the larger Eva-Liv Island for several years. Working with satellite images from the archives of open data of remote sensing of the Earth allows students and schoolchildren to study information processing technologies for project research on various topics related to ecology, nature conservation, the consequences of accidents and emergencies. The story of Mesyatsev Island, which has turned into a real "geological detective", was reported by the RGS’s website in early 2022. Now, apparently, this story has ended with the complete disappearance of the ice formation.
Mesyatsev Island, a 2021 picture from a drone. Photo: Aleksandra Barymova/Marine Research Center of Lomonosov Moscow State University
“An ice formation, which was previously called Mesyatsev Island, disappeared in the area of Eva-Liv Island of the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic. We were observing it in 2020-2022. Now the island has completely melted, which requires correction of navigation maps,” said Aleksey Kucheyko.
According to satellite imagery, Mesyatsev Island was formed from the peninsula of the same name as a result of the melting of the glacier on the island of Eva-Liv before 1995. This fact was confirmed in 2018 by the expedition of the “Arctic Archipelagos” project, and in 2021 by the staff at Russian Arctic National Park.
“We discovered the disappearance of the island in the process of completing the practical task ‘Calculating changes in areas based on a multi-time pair of satellite images’, the purpose of which was to study the effects of climate change in the Arctic zone of Russia over the past years. The objects of research were the melting dome-shaped glacier on Victoria Island, the thermokarst Batagai basin in Yakutia, and melting Mesyatsev Island," said students at the Institute No. 6 "Aerospace" MAI.
As of August 19, 2015, the area of Mesyatsev Island was about 53 hectares, on August 12, 2024, a small ice island measuring 3 hectares was recorded in the image. A month later (September 13, 2024), the island finally disappeared from the pictures.
Discussing the causes of the island's disappearance, the group put forward the following hypothesis: in the Arctic regions, climate warming leads to the melting of glaciers and sea level rising. This causes erosion of the coastline and, as a result, the disappearance of some landforms.
In the future, additional research is needed to definitively confirm the disappearance of Mesyatsev Island and identify possible changes in the topography of the seabed. An interesting scientific observation also suggests the need to correct navigation charts for the organization of ship traffic in the area of the Franz Josef archipelago.
Aleksandr Zhirnov