Alarming collapse of Greenland ice shelves sparks warning of sea level rise – Three of North Greenland’s eight enormous ice shelves have already undergone complete collapse.
by ImportantReaction260
Alarming collapse of Greenland ice shelves sparks warning of sea level rise – Three of North Greenland’s eight enormous ice shelves have already undergone complete collapse.
by ImportantReaction260
5 comments
North Greenland’s ice shelves have lost more than a third of their volume since 1978 and could collapse with “dramatic consequences,” scientists have warned.
Out of the region’s eight enormous ice shelves, three have already experienced complete collapse, and the remaining five are in rapid retreat, scientists announced in a new study, published Nov. 7 in the journal Nature Communications.
Ice shelves are the parts of an ice sheet that float on the water, preventing glaciers on the land from slipping into and melting in the ocean, which would increase sea levels. If the glaciers the North Greenland ice shelves support were to collapse, sea levels could rise by nearly 7 feet (2.1 meters).
Greenland’s ice sheet is one of only two permanent ice sheets on Earth, the other being the Antarctic ice sheet. It is roughly three times the size of Texas, covering an area of roughly 656,000 square miles (1.7 million square kilometers), according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets make up 68% of Earth’s freshwater reserves, according to the NSIDC. Both have been losing mass at an accelerated rate due to climate change, and the sheets have lost a combined 7 trillion tons (6.4 trillion metric tons) of ice since 1994, according to a study published January 2021 in the journal The Cryosphere.
Until now, not much melting has been observed in Greenland’s north, and scientists believed the ice there was relatively stable. To investigate further, the researchers fed a combination of satellite and field observations into a climate model.
Their results revealed a chilling picture: Rising ocean temperatures had caused the ice shelves holding back North Greenland’s glaciers to lose more than 35% of their total volume since 1978.
Best still or video imagery with before/after “total collapse” photos?
….let me guess they didn’t realize it would happen so fast?….😑
quick question
would the melting of that ice shelve lead to more rain?
The negative feedback loop has started