Greenland’s expansive ice sheet is known to be shrinking, especially since the 1990s, because of warming from climate change. It’s a fate shared by the Antarctic Ice Sheet as well as glaciers around the world. Now, a new study reveals that about 20 percent more of the Greenland ice sheet has disappeared than previous estimates show.
The missing ice has been breaking and melting from the ends of glaciers around Greenland’s perimeter. The new research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, provides a detailed accounting of a process that scientists knew was happening but had struggled to measure comprehensively.
“Almost every glacier in Greenland is retreating. And that story is true no matter where you look,” said Chad Greene, a glaciologist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the lead author of the study. “This retreat is happening everywhere and all at once.”
Because the ends of these glaciers generally sit below sea level, within deep fjords, their retreat isn’t directly adding a significant amount to sea level rise. But melting ice still adds an influx of freshwater that has implications for global climate models and projections, and for the system of ocean currents that regulates temperatures on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
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