Nick Selmes

Plymouth Marine Laboratory | PML · Remote Sensing Group

Ocean colour (OC) remote sensing is an important tool for monitoring phytoplankton in the global ocean. In optically complex waters such as the Baltic Sea, relatively efficient light absorption by substances other than phytoplankton increases product uncertainty. Sentinel-3 OLCI-A, Suomi-NPP VIIRS and MODIS-Aqua OC radiometric products were assesse...

Satellite product uncertainty estimates are critical for the further development and evaluation of remote sensing algorithms, as well as for the user community (e.g., modelers, climate scientists, and decision-makers). Optical remote sensing of water quality is affected by significant uncertainties stemming from correction for atmospheric effects a...

The release of legacy contaminants such as fallout radionuclides (FRNs) in response to glacier retreat is a process that has received relatively little attention to date, yet may have consequences as a source of secondary contamination as glaciers melt and down-waste in response to a warming climate. The presence of FRNs in glacier-fed catchments i...

High resolution imaging spectrometers are prerequisite to address significant data gaps in inland optical water quality monitoring. In this work, we provide a data-driven alignment of chlorophyll-a and turbidity derived from the Sentinel-2 MultiSpectral Imager (MSI) with corresponding Sentinel-3 Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) products. For...

Fishing activities continue to decimate populations of marine mammals, fish, and their habitats in the coastal waters of the Kep Archipelago, a cluster of tropical islands on the Cambodia-Vietnam border. In 2019, the area was recognized as an Important Marine Mammal Area, largely owing to the significant presence of Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella bre...

The release of legacy fallout radionuclides (FRNs) in response to glacier retreat is a process that has received relatively little attention to date, yet may have important consequences as a source of secondary contamination as glaciers melt and down-waste in response to a warming climate. The prevalence of FRNs in glacier-fed catchments is poorly...

NEOM (short for Neo-Mustaqbal) is a $500 billion coastal city megaproject, currently under construction in the northwestern part of the Red Sea, off the coast of Tabuk province in Saudi Arabia, and its success will rely on the preservation of biodiverse marine ecosystems. Monitoring the variability of ecological indicators, such as phytoplankton, i...

Almost half of the Greenland ice sheet's mass loss occurs through iceberg calving at marine terminating glaciers. The presence of buoyant subglacial discharge plumes at these marine termini are thought to increase mass loss both through submarine melting and by undercutting that consequently increases calving rates. Plume models are used to predict...

New high resolution multibeam data in the Gulf of Bothnia reveal for the first time the subglacial environment of a Bothnian Sea Ice Stream. The geomorphological record suggests that increased meltwater production may have been important in driving rapid retreat of Bothnian Sea ice during deglaciation. Here we apply a well-established one-dimension...

Supraglacial lake drainage events are common on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Observations on the west coast typically show an up-glacier progression of drainage as the annual melt extent spreads inland. We use a suite of remote sensing and modelling techniques in order to study a series of lakes and water-filled crevasses within 20km of the terminus of...

The formation and rapid drainage of supraglacial lakes (SGL) influences the mass balance and dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). Although SGLs are expected to spread inland during the 21st century due to atmospheric warming, less is known about their future spatial distribution and volume. We use GrIS surface elevation model and regional cl...

Overall mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet nearly doubled during the early 2000s resulting in an increased contribution to sea-level rise, with this step-change being mainly attributed to the widespread frontal retreat and accompanying dynamic thinning of tidewater glaciers. Changes in glacier calving-front positions are easily derived from rem...

Overall mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet nearly doubled during the early 2000s resulting in an increased contribution to sea-level rise, with this step-change being mainly attributed to the widespread frontal retreat and accompanying dynamic thinning of tidewater glaciers. Changes in glacier calving-front positions are easily derived from rem...

Nearly half of Greenland's mass loss occurs through iceberg calving, but the physical mechanisms operating during calving are poorly known and in situ observations are sparse. We show that calving at Greenland's Helheim Glacier causes a minutes-long reversal of the glacier's horizontal flow and a downward deflection of its terminus. The reverse mot...

During summer 2013 we installed a network of 19 GPS nodes at the ungrounded margin of Helheim Glacier in southeast Greenland together with three cameras to study iceberg calving mechanisms. The network collected data at rates up to every 7 s and was designed to be robust to loss of nodes as the glacier calved. Data collection covered 55 days, and m...

This paper provides an overview of a wide area wireless sensor network that was deployed on the calving front of the Helheim Glacier in Greenland during the summer of 2013. The purpose of the network was to measure the flow rate of the glacier using accurate satellite positioning data. The challenge in this extreme environment was to collect data i...

Iceberg calving accounts for a significant proportion of annual mass loss from marine-terminating glaciers(1,2) and may have been a factor in the rapid demise of ancient ice sheets(3). The largest contributions from the main outlet glaciers of the Greenland ice sheet to sea-level rise over the next two centuries have been projected to be dynamic in...

Calving is an important mass-loss process for many glaciers worldwide, and has been assumed to respond to a variety of environmental influences. We present a grounded, flowline tidewater glacier model using a physically-based calving mechanism, applied to Helheim Glacier, eastern Greenland. By qualitatively examining both modelled size and frequenc...

Supraglacial lakes (SGLs) affect the dynamics of the Greenland ice sheet by storing runoff and draining episodically. We investigate the evolution of SGLs as reported in three datasets, each based on automated classification of satellite imagery. Although the datasets span the period 2001–10, there are differences in temporal sampling, and only the...

Calving is an important mass-loss process for many glaciers worldwide, and has been assumed to respond to a variety of environmental influences. We present a grounded, flowline tidewater glacier model, using a physically realistic calving mechanism, which is applied to Helheim Glacier, East Greenland. By qualitatively examining both modelled size a...

Calving glaciers have been identified as having a crucial role in the mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet, with acceleration and retreat of these glaciers resulting in major mass loss from the ice sheet interior, leading to a corresponding sea level rise. The ability to reproduce observed glacier behaviour in calving models is very desirable, b...

The behaviour of supraglacial lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet, specifically with regard to their drainage through hydrofracturing to the ice sheet base, has received a great deal of recent attention. However, a previous study has shown that this mode of drainage accounts for only 13% of the lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet. No published work to da...

The behaviour of supraglacial lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet has attracted a great deal of focus, specifically with regard to their fast drainage through hydrofracturing to the ice sheet base. However, a previous study has shown that this mode of drainage accounts for only 13% of the lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet. No published work to date has...

Large-scale changes have been reported in many areas of the Greenland ice sheet in the past decade and most of these changes are attributed to dynamic mass loss of marine terminating outlet glaciers. Therefore, iceberg calving is suspected to be one of the main contributors to Greenland overall mass loss, but no ice sheet wide studies exist at the...

It has been widely reported that the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is losing mass to the oceans at an accelerating rate due to increased ice sheet runoff and changes in ice dynamics. This will have important implications on global sea level, ocean circulation and regional climate. Evidence from GRACE and satellite and airborne altimetry shows that cha...

The rapid drainage of supraglacial lakes around the ablation zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet forms an important link between water at the surface and the ice sheet base, allowing surface meltwater to reach the bed and hence increase glacial velocity. The conduits formed by lake drainages may remain open during the remainder of the melt season provi...

The region of greatest mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet is the south-east, where iceberg calving from marine-terminating outlet glaciers dominates mass loss. Helheim Glacier is the third largest catchment of the Greenland Ice Sheet and discharges into Sermilik Fjord on the SE coast, a 90 km long fjord up to 900 m deep. During July 2009 and 20...

The Greenland Ice Sheet is losing mass to the oceans at an accelerating rate due to increased runoff and changes in ice dynamics. This will have important implications for global sea-level, ocean circulation, and regional climate. A wide variety of evidence, including GRACE data, and both satellite and airborne altimetry show that losses from the s...

Synchronous acceleration and thinning of southeast (SE) Greenland glaciers during the early 2000s was the main contributor that resulted in the doubling of annual discharge from the ice sheet. We show that this acceleration was followed by a synchronized and widespread slowdown of the same glaciers, in many cases associated with a decrease in thinn...

Synchronous acceleration and thinning of south-east (SE) Greenland glaciers during the early 2000s was the main contributor in causing the annual mass loss from the ice sheet to double. During the period 2003-2005, SE Greenland's outlet glaciers were dramatically thinning, accelerating, and retreating. Then, in 2006, two of the largest outlet glaci...

The southeast quadrant of the Greenland ice sheet has undergone rapid changes in recent years and many marine-terminating outlet glaciers synchronously accelerated, thinned and their calving fronts retreated significantly between 2003 and 2005. Subsequently these glaciers have slowed, again simultaneously, with many outlets in 2008 flowing at speed...

A terrestrial laser scanner was used to take four scans of an area of trees, approximately 480 m2 in area, within a coniferous tree stand situated in Leicestershire, UK. A number of measurements were extracted from the point cloud and compared with field measurements. Automatic stem recognition was achieved for all stems except those at the edge of...

Surface melt ponds form seasonally in the ablation zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet and they have been shown to provide the sites for the hydrofracture initiation of the moulins required for supraglacial meltwater to reach the bed of the Greenland Ice Sheet (Das et al., 2008). Studies to date have been restricted to a region of large surface lakes s...

Following a relatively stable period during the 1990's, dramatic changes have been reported for many tidewater outlets in the south-eastern part of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). Results from measurements using the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) mission clearly identified the south-eastern part of the GrIS as having the highest ra...