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As the world’s ice sheets melt, Greenland grows taller in a process known as glacial isostatic rebound. Living science describes this gradual increase in the country’s surface area as something like a “decompressing mattress.” While the weight of the ice sheet decreases over time (as happened at the end of the last ice age 11,700 years ago), the Earth’s bedrock begins to expand upward. A new study published in Geophysical research letters It says that up to a third of the land’s rise in some areas is due to retreating glaciers.
“The land’s maximum elevation is where the greatest mass loss occurs, and is closest to Greenland’s largest glaciers,” says lead author Danjal Longfors Berg. He and his colleagues used data from 58 GPS monitors embedded in Greenland’s bedrock in 2007 that measure the “vertical motion” of the earth. Part of its increase was due to natural rebound, but in two separate drainage basins in the north and east, 32% and 27.9% of the rebound was caused by ice loss. Bedrock was rising most rapidly (3 inches per year) in southeast Greenland on the Kangerlussuaq Glacier, which has retreated 6.2 miles since 1900.
“When we calculate how much mass is being lost, we can give a better estimate of how much sea level is rising,” Berg says. He New York TimesMeanwhile, it reports that Greenland’s glaciers are melting faster than we thought. A new study published in Nature suggests that 20% more ice has melted along the edges of the country’s glaciers than previously estimated. “Almost all of Greenland’s glaciers are receding. And that story is true no matter where you look,” says glaciologist Chad Greene. Times. “This retreat is happening everywhere and at the same time.” (More stories from Greenland).