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Enormous Ice Loss from Greenland Glacier

Enormous Ice Loss from Greenland Glacier

Ground-based measuring devices and aircraft radar operated in the far northeast of Greenland show how much ice the 79° N Glacier is losing. According to measurements conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute, the thickness of the glacier has decreased by more than 160 metres since 1998. Warm ocean water flowing under the glacier tongue is melting the ice from below. High air temperatures cause lakes to form on the surface, whose water flows through huge channels in the ice into the ocean. One channel reached a height of 500 metres, while the ice above was only 190 metres thick, as a research team has now reported in the scientific

Breaching 2 °C warming could lead to significant melting of the Filchner Ronne Ice Shelf

Antarctica

Breaching 2 °C warming could lead to significant melting of the Filchner Ronne Ice Shelf

Exceeding 2 °C of global warming compared to the pre-industrial period is likely to result in significantly increased deep water temperatures in the Filchner Trough in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica, reports a modelling study lead by researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute and published in Communications Earth & Environment. This warmer water could lead to a significantly increased melting rate of the Filchner Ronne Antarctic ice shelf, resulting in a substantial rise in global sea levels.

Warm Atlantic water is melting Greenland’s largest floating ice tongue

Greenland's ice-sheet

Warm Atlantic water is melting Greenland’s largest floating ice tongue

Although the tongue of the 79°North Glacier on the north-east coast of Greenland has hardly become any shorter in recent decades, it has become increasingly thinner. A study team from the Alfred Wegener Institute can now explain why. Using a computer model, they were able to show that warm water from the Atlantic flows into the cavern under the glacier tongue and melts the ice there from below.