Rapid Collapse of the Vavilov Ice Cap, Russian High Arctic.

Cold based ice caps and glaciers are thought to respond slowly to environmental changes. As sea ice cover evolves in the Arctic, a feedback process alters air-temperatures and precipitation patterns across the region. During the last decades of the 20th century the land-terminating western margin of the Vavilov Ice Cap, on October Revolution Island of the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago, advanced slowly westwards. The advance was driven by precipitation changes that occurred about half a millennia ago. InSAR shows that in 1996 the margin sustained ice speeds of around 20 m/yr. By 2000 the ice front had moved a short distance into the Kara Sea and had transitioned to a marine-terminating front, although an ice apron around the ice margin indicates the ice there was still frozen to the bed and there is no evidence of calving in satellite imagery. In 2013 ice motions near the terminus had accelerated to around 1 …