An international team of scientists is determined to understand just how quickly Greenland\u2019s melting glaciers are pushing the Atlantic Ocean towards a \u201ccritical climate tipping point\u201d.<\/p>\n
As part of a five-year project known as GIANT (Greenland Ice sheet to Atlantic Tipping Points), researchers from 17 partners \u2013 led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) \u2013 will head to the autonomous island this summer for a two-month expedition.<\/p>\n
Funded by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), researchers hope to grasp the level of meltwater being released from Greenland’s fjord glaciers<\/a>, how it enters the North Atlantic Ocean, and how this process impacts the global climate system.<\/p>\n Why Greenland\u2019s tipping point is a concern for everyone<\/p>\n Greenland\u2019s shrinking ice caps have already contributed around one-fifth of global sea level rise, as heat-trapping emissions send temperatures soaring.<\/p>\n According to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, the Greenland ice sheet holds enough water to raise global sea levels by 7.4 metres if it were to melt completely. For every centimetre of sea level rise, around six million people on the planet are exposed to coastal flooding.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Greenland\u2019s melting ice<\/a> also discharges vast quantities of freshwater into the ocean, which scientists worry may impact a major Atlantic Ocean current system called the Subpolar Gyre. This system carries heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic, regulating temperatures and weather across Europe and North America.<\/p>\n However, fresh meltwater may \u201ccap\u201d the Subpolar Gyre, blocking the formation of warmer, dense water that powers the wider global ocean conveyor belt that moves heat and nutrients around the world. Some estimates warn that the Subpolar Gyre could change in the next four years.<\/p>\n Inside the race to understand Greenland\u2019s melting glaciers<\/p>\n Despite the stark implications, scientists currently don\u2019t have a clear picture of how Greenland\u2019s fjord glaciers and the island\u2019s 200 narrow fjords actually interact with the surrounding ocean.<\/p>\n It\u2019s why researchers are travelling to Greenland this summer armed with a \u201csophisticated suite\u201d of technologies including airborne drones, autonomous marine robots, satellites and instruments that can be embedded directly into glacier ice.<\/p>\n The coordinated observing system will allow researchers to get up close and personal with the glaciers, scanning individual cracks in the ice all the way up to the flow of meltwater and icebergs into the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n This data will then be fed into multiple computer models and will be used to develop a prototype Early Warning System that could signal advance notice of any rapid glacier change.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a massively ambitious project and is urgent,\u201d says Dr Kelly Hohan, co-creator of GIANT and a climate scientist at BAS.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know Greenland is losing ice at an unprecedented rate and this will impact the surrounding ocean \u2013 from the coastal fjords [that are] so important to Greenland\u2019s communities \u2013 to the large currents that bring heat to Western Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n