New research suggests that the Greenland Ice Sheet may be losing more ice in the future. After the Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Greenland Ice Sheet has the 2nd largest ice sheet in the world. It covers approximately 1,710,000 square kilometres, which is nearly 80% of the surface of Greenland. The ice sheet could melt completely, causing sea levels to rise to 20 feet. This would cause severe damage to costal communities around the globe. Beata Csatho PhD, a geophysicist at Buffalo University, was the lead researcher on this study, which is one of the most important of its kind and sheds light on Greenland’s disappearing ice. Csatho states that the data provides a detailed picture of Greenland’s changes over the last decade. Cornelis J. Van der Veen PhD is a professor at the University of Kansas’ Department of Geography. He stated: “This data is crucial to develop and validate numerical models that predict how ice sheets will change over the next few centuries.” Glaciers of Western Greenland. Credit to Beata Csatho. The scientists gathered the most information possible using aerial and satellite data collected by NASA’s ICESat spacecraft, and Operation IceBridge field campaign. They were able to monitor and reveal how the height of the Greenland Ice Sheet changed at around 100,000 locations from 1993 to 2012. Two major discoveries were made. The first was that the researchers presented new estimates for annual ice losses at high spatial resolution. It also shows that existing models do not accurately measure how Greenland Ice Sheet transforms and affects sea level. Climate change models will find the research very helpful as it uses the activity of four glaciers, Jakobshavn (Helheim), Kangerlussuaq (Petermann) – to forecast how the entire Greenland Ice Sheet will melt into oceans. Previous computer modeling such as those from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could have been too conservative. Csatho states that 242 outlets glaciers extend over 1.5km on Greenland Ice Sheet. “What we see is their complex behavior in time and space.” Csatho says that the influence of local geological and climate conditions as well as local hydrology can be significant. This complexity is not addressed by the current models. According to the findings of the study, approximately 243 megatons of ice were lost annually at Greenland Ice Sheet from 2003 through 2009.. The loss of ice at the Greenland Ice Sheet was estimated to have contributed approximately 0. 68 milliards of liters of water were lost to the oceans each year. Chris Mooney is a Washington Post reporter on science and environment. He commented that these worrying figures were alarming. A recent study estimated the amount of melting from the ice sheet to be around. 29 Millimeters per Year — This research raises questions about how computer models, up to now, have attempted to model the Greenland Ice Sheet dynamics. References: Beata M. Csathoa and Anton F. Schenk. Jan H. van Angelen. “Scientists worry that Greenland may melt faster than they expected.” – Chris Mooney. December 15.
