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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Study says, nothing can be done even with carbon emissions cuts No matter how much the world cuts back on carbon emissions, a key and sizable chunk of Antarctica is essentially doomed to an “unavoidable” melt, a new study found. Though the full melt will take hundreds of years, slowly adding nearly 6 feet (1.8 meters) to sea levels, it will be enough to reshape where and how people live in the future, the study’s lead author said. Researchers used computer simulations to calculate future melting of protective ice shelves jutting over Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea in western Antarctica. The study in Monday’s journal Nature Climate Change found even if future warming was limited to just a few tenths of a degree more – an international goal that many scientists say is unlikely to be met...
Read MoreThe 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 MoreKiller whales are intelligent, adaptive predators, often teaming up to take down larger prey. Continuous reduction in sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is opening areas to increased killer whale dwelling and predation, potentially creating an ecological imbalance. During the 181st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, held from Nov. 29-Dec. 3, Brynn Kimber, from the University of Washington, discussed how killer whales have spent more time than previously recorded in the Arctic, following the decrease in sea ice. Killer whales will often travel to different areas to target varieties of prey. In a study including eight years of passive acoustic data, Kimber and their team monitored killer whale movements using acoustic tools, finding killer whales are spending more time than pr...
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