Collapsing Greenland glacier could raise sea levels by half a metre, say scientists
Photo http://www.planetextinction.com
Glacier has begun to break up, could continue to raise sea levels for decades to come what price seaside tourism?
Scientists say the Zachariae Isstrom glacier has now become detached from a stabilising sill and is losing ice at a rate of 4.5bn tonnes a year, writes Ian Sample in the UK Guardian
The huge Zachariae Isstrom glacier in northeast Greenland started to melt rapidly in 2012 and is now breaking up into large icebergs where the glacier meets the sea, monitoring has revealed.
The calving of the glacier into chunks of floating ice will set in train a rise in sea levels that will continue for decades to come, the US team warns.
"Even if we have some really cool years ahead, we think the glacier is now unstable," said Jeremie Mouginot at the University of California, Irvine. "Now this has started, it will continue until it retreats to a ridge about 30km back which could stabilise it and perhaps slow that retreat down."
The same records revealed that from 2002 to 2014 the area of the glacier’s floating shelf shrank by a massive 95%, according to a report in the journal Science. The glacier has now become detached from a stabilising sill and is losing ice at a rate of 4.5bn tonnes a year.
Eric Rignot, professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, said "The glacier is now breaking into bits and pieces and retreating into deeper ground," he said. The rapid retreat is expected to continue for 20 to 30 more years, until the glacier reaches another natural ledge that slows it down.
The bleak assessment of the glaciers’ retreat comes only months after Nasa launched an urgent six year project called Oceans Melting Greenland to understand the processes that drive the loss of Greenland ice.
Clearly rising sea levels will not only increase global warming but also put coastal destinations and small islands at risk.
See the full story at The Guardian
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