[font face=Serif][font size=5]Study provides first detailed look at how Greenland’s ice is vanishing[/font]



By CHARLOTTE HSU
Published December 15, 2014

[font size=3]The Greenland Ice Sheet is the second-largest body of ice on Earth. It covers an area about five times the size of New York State and Kansas combined, and if it melts completely, oceans could rise by 20 feet. Coastal communities from Florida to Bangladesh would suffer extensive damage.

Now, a new study is revealing just how little we understand this northern behemoth.

Led by geophysicist Beata Csatho, UB associate professor of geology, the research provides what the authors think is the first comprehensive picture of how Greenland’s ice is vanishing. It suggests that current ice sheet modeling studies are too simplistic to accurately predict future sea level rise, and that Greenland may lose ice more rapidly in the near future than previously thought.

“The great importance of our data is that for the first time, we have a comprehensive picture of how all of Greenland’s glaciers have changed over the past decade,” Csatho says.

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[font face=Serif][font size=5]Hidden Movements of Greenland Ice Sheet, Runoff Revealed[/font]

December 15, 2014

[font size=3]For years NASA has tracked changes in the massive Greenland Ice Sheet. This week scientists using NASA data released the most detailed picture ever of how the ice sheet moves toward the sea and new insights into the hidden plumbing of melt water flowing under the snowy surface.

The results of these studies are expected to improve predictions of the future of the entire Greenland ice sheet and its contribution to sea level rise as researchers revamp their computer models of how the ice sheet reacts to a warming climate.

“With the help of NASA satellite and airborne remote sensing instruments, the Greenland Ice Sheet is finally yielding its secrets,” said Tom Wagner, program scientist for NASA’s cryosphere program in Washington. “These studies represent new leaps in our knowledge of how the ice sheet is losing ice. It turns out the ice sheet is a lot more complex than we ever thought.”


[font size=1]This animation (from March 2014) portrays the changes occurring in the surface elevation of the Greenland Ice Sheet since 2003 in three drainage areas: the southeast, the northeast and the Jakobshavn regions. In each region, the time advances to show the accumulated change in elevation, 2003-2012.
Image Credit:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Download video in HD formats from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio[/font]

University at Buffalo geophysicist Beata Csatho led an international team that produced the first comprehensive study of how the ice sheet is losing mass based on NASA satellite and airborne data at nearly 100,000 locations across Greenland. The study found that the ice sheet shed about 243 gigatons of ice per year from 2003-09, which agrees with other studies using different techniques. The study was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study suggests that current ice sheet modeling is too simplistic to accurately predict the future contribution of the Greenland ice sheet to sea level rise, and that current models may underestimate ice loss in the near future.

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The team also identified areas of rapid shrinkage in southeast Greenland that today’s models don’t acknowledge. This leads Csatho to believe that the ice sheet could lose ice faster in the future than today’s simulations would suggest.

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Another researcher participating in the briefing found that near-surface layers can also contain masses of solid ice that can lead to flooding events. Michael MacFerrin, a scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, and colleagues studying radar data from IceBridge and surface based instruments found near surface patches of ice known as ice lenses more than 25 miles farther inland than previously recorded.

Ice lenses form when firn collects surface meltwater like a sponge. When this shallow ice melts, as was seen during July 2012, they can release large amounts of water that can lead to flooding. Warm summers and resulting increased surface melt in recent years have likely caused ice lenses to grow thicker and spread farther inland. “This represents a rapid feedback mechanism. If current trends continue, the flooding will get worse,” MacFerrin said.[/font][/font]