Greenland's Ice Sheet Melting Faster Than Scientists Previously Estimated, Study Finds

Scientists have underestimated recent mass loss from Greenland by as much as 20%, finds a new study published in the journal Nature. CBS News reports: Since 1985, Greenland's ice sheet has lost approximately 5,091 square kilometers of ice researchers found using satellite imagery. Scientists said earlier estimates did not track melting at the edges of the ice sheets, known as calving, which measures ice breaking off at the terminus of a glacier. Greenland's ice sheet loses about 193 square kilometers of ice per year, researchers found. Study co-author Chad Greene and his colleagues said they qualified the extent of calving, which increased the scope of ice mass lost.

They combined '236,328 observations of glacier terminus positions' compiled from various public data sets to capture monthly ice melt. Their measurements found that between 1985 and 2022, almost every glacier in Greenland experienced some level of loss. Researchers in the study noted that 'this retreat does not appear to substantially contribute to sea level rise' because most of the glacier margins the scientists measured were already underwater. The loss, however, may play a part in ocean circulation patterns, and how heat energy is distributed across the planet.

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