Satellite images reveal that Mesyatsev Island, a large iceberg in the Arctic, may have completely melted due to climate change.
A group of high school and university students discovered that Russia’s Mesyatsev Island in the Arctic has disappeared while comparing satellite images of the area for the RISKSAT educational project by the Moscow Aviation Institute, Live Science reported on November 8.
Mesyatsev Island, which is essentially an iceberg that separated from Eva-Liv Island, floating on the sea. (Photo: Alexandra Barymova/Moscow State University Marine Research Center).
Mesyatsev Island is an iceberg and debris located near the larger Eva-Liv Island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago – a Russian archipelago consisting of about 190 islands in the Arctic Ocean. This small island was once an ice cape connected to its larger “neighbor,” Eva-Liv, but may have separated before 1985, according to a study published in the journal Geosciences in 2019.
In 2010, Mesyatsev Island had a surface area of about 1.1 million m2 – equivalent to approximately 20 American football fields. However, when reviewing a series of newly captured satellite images taken on August 12, 2024, the students found that the island had shrunk to only 30,000 m2, a reduction of over 99.7% compared to 14 years prior. By September 3, newer images indicated that the island had completely vanished, according to the Russian Geographical Society. The students compared satellite photos as part of the RISKSAT project managed by the Moscow Aviation Institute.
The reason for the island’s disappearance may be the rising temperatures caused by human-induced climate change, according to Alexey Kucheiko, a researcher at the Moscow Aviation Institute. “The island has completely melted,” he stated.
Satellite images taken on August 19, 2015 (left) and September 13, 2024 (right) show Mesyatsev Island disappearing. (Photo: Russian Geographical Society/RISKSAT).
Mesyatsev Island began melting after separating from Eva-Liv, but the melting rate has accelerated over the past decade. In 2015, the measured area of the island was about 530,000 m2, less than half of its total area in 2010. By 2022, the island had shrunk to a point where researchers stopped monitoring it, believing it would soon disappear. Therefore, the fact that the island was still visible in the satellite images the students observed this August surprised them.
Researchers are uncertain why the island lasted longer than expected. However, one hypothesis suggests that the layer of debris on the island may have been washed away by waves or rainfall, slowing its melting rate. This debris had darkened the island in 2021, thus absorbing more solar radiation. The debris could have been blown to the island or released from melting ice.
