The image is highly oblique—taken from an angle looking outwards from the ISS, rather than straight down towards the Earth—and this perspective provides a sense of topography along the southern edge of Greenland. The exposed dark grey bedrock along the southwestern coastline has been carved by glaciers into numerous fjords, steep-sided valleys that drain directly into the ocean.
On Greenland, tens of thousands of years of snowfall have settled and solidified into a massive sheet of ice. Each summer, snow retreats briefly at low elevations, and a narrow strip of rocky coastline emerges. While some seasonal thawing is typical on Greenland, more dramatic changes are probably in store for the Greenland Ice Sheet in coming decades and centuries.
Acquired March 27, 2010, this natural-color image shows part of the southeastern coast of Greenland, fringed by multiple forms of sea ice: fast ice, multiyear ice fragments, and small pieces of ice shaped into swirls by currents.
Although 2005 overall saw a new record, the extent of June melting in 2005 was unexceptional. The same held true for 2006, when this picture was taken.