Accelerated melt. (Credit: TiPES/HP)
(CN) Scientists estimate the melting of Central-Western Greenland ice sheet may be reaching a tipping point, causing the thaw to accelerate.
Even if the artic warming trend is reversed in the coming decades, the change may not be enough to save the massive ice sheet, which is a 660,000 square mile body of ice covering almost 80% of Greenland. It is the second largest ice formation in the world after the Antarctic ice sheet.
Data from the Jakobshavn drainage basin of the ice sheet reveals distinct evidence of the growing melt, according to Niklas Boers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and Martin Rypdal from the Arctic University of Norway. The pair of scientists have studied the melt rates and ice-sheet height changes during the last 140 years.
Credit: TiPES/HP
Data from the Jakobshavn drainage basin of the Central-Western Greenland ice sheet reveals the distinct mark of this part of the ice sheet having reached a tipping point. That is the conclusion by Niklas Boers from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany and Martin Rypdal from the Arctic University of Norway, after careful studies of the development in melt rates and ice-sheet height changes during the last 140 years. The two authors propose close monitoring of the Greenland ice sheet to assess the situation. The work, published in
PNAS today, is part of the TiPES project, coordinated and led by the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.