The research discovered that an estimated 11,000 sq. miles of Greenland’s ice sheet and glaciers have melted over the previous 30 years — an space roughly 9 occasions the dimensions of Rhode Island and equal to round 1.6% of Greenland’s complete ice cowl.Utilizing satellite tv for pc pictures, the researchers discovered that the quantity of land with vegetation rising on it has elevated by 33,774 sq. miles from the mid-Nineteen Eighties via the mid-2010s. Among the most vital modifications have been noticed throughout southwestern, jap and northeastern Greenland, in response to the research.
Wetlands, particularly, almost quadrupled throughout Greenland over the research interval, significantly across the city of Kangerlussuaq on the western coast.
The noticed modifications aren’t simply dangerous information for Greenland’s ice sheets and glaciers, stated Jonathan Carrivick, an Earth scientist on the College of Leeds in the UK and one of many authors of the research.
“We now have seen indicators that the lack of ice is triggering different reactions which can lead to additional lack of ice and additional ‘greening’ of Greenland, the place shrinking ice exposes naked rock that’s then colonised by tundra and finally shrub,” Carrivick said in a statement.
“On the identical time, water launched from the melting ice is transferring sediment and silt, and that finally types wetlands and fenlands,” he stated.
