From Business Insider
Greenland's ice sheet may have hit a tipping point that sets it on an irreversible path to completely disappearing.
Snowfall that normally replenishes Greenland's glaciers each year can no longer keep up with the pace of ice melt, according to researchers at Ohio State University. That means that the Greenland ice sheet — the world's second-largest ice body — would continue to lose ice even if global temperatures stop rising.
In their study, published Thursday in the journal Nature, the scientists reviewed 40 years of monthly satellite data from more than 200 large glaciers that are draining into the ocean across Greenland.
"What we've found is that the ice that's discharging into the ocean is far surpassing the snow that's accumulating on the surface of the ice sheet," Michalea King, the study's lead author and researcher at Ohio State University's Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, said in a press release.
Complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet could raise sea levels 23 feet by the year 3000. If that happens, the ocean would swallow coastal cities across the globe. Greenland's ice is already the world's largest single contributor to sea-level rise. In just the next 80 years, its current melt rate would add another 2.75 inches to global sea levels, according to a study published in December.
"Glacier retreat has knocked the dynamics of the whole ice sheet into a constant state of loss," Ian Howat, a glaciologist and co-author on the paper, said in the release. "Even if the climate were to stay the same or even get a little colder, the ice sheet would still be losing mass."
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| Water from the Greenland ice sheet flows through heather and peat during unseasonably warm weather on August 1, 2019 at Eqip Sermia, Greenland. Source: CNN |
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