The Greenland Ice Sheet lost 5,091 sq km (1930 sq miles) of area between 1985 and 2022, according to a study in the journal Nature published on Wednesday, the first full ice-sheet wide estimate of area loss on that scale. This shrinkage reflected the 1,034 gigatonnes (1.034 trillion kg.) of ice that have been lost as glaciers retreated, shedding ice through "calving" - when ice chunks break off from a glacier - at their terminating ends. FILE PHOTO: The edge of the ice sheet is pictured south of Ilulissat, Greenland, September 17, 2021. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke The study is also the first to fully estimate how much ice Greenland has lost due specifically to glacial retreat. It suggests previous estimates of changes to the Greenland Ice Sheet's mass balance - how much snow and ic...
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The ice sheet could experience runaway melting if the world overshoots climate targets, but even then quick action could stabilize it Greenland’s massive ice sheet, which is thawing because of human-induced climate change, could be saved from complete meltdown even if global temperatures soar past key international targets, a study suggests. But rescuing the ice in these conditions would require huge future cuts in atmospheric greenhouse-gas levels — and would not prevent the ice sheet from melting enough to cause up to several metres of sea-level rise. Melt water courses across the Greenland ice sheet, the largest ice mass in the Northern Hemisphere. Credit: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Using climate modelling, the research concludes that Greenland’s melti...
Read MoreA luxury cruise ship carrying 206 people remained stuck in a remote Greenland location on Wednesday after running aground earlier this week, the vessel's operator and rescue services said. The Danish military's Joint Arctic Command (JAC) said Tuesday's tide had failed to lift the 104-metre (341-foot) Ocean Explorer enough to free it. "The tide that came in during the day, local time, did not provide the desired help to sail on," the JAC said in a statement. View of the Ocean Explorer, a luxury cruise ship carrying 206 people that ran aground, in Alpefjord, Greenland, September 12, 2023. Danish Air Force/Arctic Command/Handout via REUTERS The passengers and crew remained safe on board, Australian cruise operator Aurora Expeditions said. "There is no immediate danger to thems...
Read MoreA sharp spike in Greenland temperatures since 1995 showed the giant northern island 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) hotter than its 20th-century average, the warmest in more than 1,000 years, according to new ice core data. Until now Greenland ice cores -- a glimpse into long-running temperatures before thermometers -- hadn’t shown much of a clear signal of global warming on the remotest north central part of the island, at least compared to the rest of the world. But the ice cores also hadn’t been updated since 1995. Newly analyzed cores, drilled in 2011, show a dramatic rise in temperature in the previous 15 years, according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature. “We keep on (seeing) rising temperatures between 1990s and 2011,” said study lead author Maria Hoerhold, a glaciol...
Read MoreScientists discovered the oldest known DNA and used it to reveal what life was like 2 million years ago in the northern tip of Greenland. Today, it’s a barren Arctic desert, but back then it was a lush landscape of trees and vegetation with an array of animals, even the now extinct mastodon. “The study opens the door into a past that has basically been lost,” said lead author Kurt Kjær, a geologist and glacier expert at the University of Copenhagen. This illustration provided by researchers depicts Kap Kobenhavn, Greenland, two million years ago, when the temperature was significantly warmer than northernmost Greenland today. (Beth Zaiken via AP) With animal fossils hard to come by, the researchers extracted environmental DNA, also known as eDNA, from soil samples. This is the ge...
Read MoreZombie ice from the massive Greenland ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 10 inches (27 centimeters) on its own, according to a study released Monday. Zombie or doomed ice is ice that is still attached to thicker areas of ice, but is no longer getting fed by those larger glaciers. That’s because the parent glaciers are getting less replenishing snow. Meanwhile the doomed ice is melting from climate change, said study co-author William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. “It’s dead ice. It’s just going to melt and disappear from the ice sheet,” Colgan said in an interview. “This ice has been consigned to the ocean, regardless of what climate (emissions) scenario we take now.” FILE PHOTO: A boat navigates at night next ...
Read MoreAn isolated population of polar bears in Greenland has made a clever adaptation to the decline in the sea ice they depend upon as a platform for hunting seals, offering a ray of hope for this species in at least some locales in the warming Arctic. This population of several hundred bears, inhabiting part of Greenland's southeast coast on the Denmark Strait, has survived with only abbreviated access to ice formed from frozen seawater by hunting instead from chunks of freshwater ice breaking off from the huge Greenland Ice Sheet, researchers said on Thursday. Three adult polar bears in southeast Greenland using the sea ice during the limited time when it is available in this region in this handout photograph taken in April 2015. Kristin Laidre/University of Washington/Handout via REUT...
Read MoreMelting rate accelerating at the most important ice on Earth Researchers have observed extremely high rates of melting at the bottom of the Greenland Ice Sheet, caused by huge quantities of meltwater falling from the surface to the base. As the meltwater falls, energy is converted into heat in a process like the hydroelectric power generated by large dams. An international team of scientists, led by the University of Cambridge, found that the effect of meltwater descending from the surface of the ice sheet to the bed – a kilometre or more below – is by far the largest heat source beneath the world’s second-largest ice sheet, leading to phenomenally high rates of melting at its base. Water flowing into a moulin and down to the bed of Store Glacier, Greenland. Photo: Poul Christoff...
Read MoreRain fell at the highest point on the Greenland ice sheet last week for the first time on record, another worrying sign of warming for the ice sheet already melting at an increasing rate, scientists said on Friday. "That's not a healthy sign for an ice sheet," said Indrani Das, a glaciologist with Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "Water on ice is bad. … It makes the ice sheet more prone to surface melt." Not only is water warmer than the usual snow, it's also darker -- so it absorbs more sunlight rather than reflecting it away. A satellite image shows Nuuk Fjord, Greenland July 29, 2021. European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery - Processed by @DEFIS_EU/Handout via REUTERS That meltwater is streaming into the ocean, causing sea levels to rise. Alread...
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