Published 19:29 IST, August 17th 2020
Greenland's ice sheet would continue to melt even if global warming stops: Research
Ice Sheets on the glaciers of Greenland would continue to melt even if global warming stops, suggest study which is published in the journal "Nature".
Advertisement
A new research titled “Nature Communications Earth and Environment” which has been published in journal ‘Nature’ suggests that even if global warming stops today, ice sheet on glaciers of Greenland would continue to melt. According to study, researchers have concluded that annual swfall on glaciers is longer eugh to relo ice that melts during summer. study observed 234 glaciers across Arctic spanning 34 years till 2018.
repair for dam
le author of study, and researcher at Ohio State University, Michalea king said, "We've been looking at se remote sensing observations to study how ice discharge and accumulation have varied. And what we've found is that ice that's discharging into ocean is far surpassing sw that's accumulating on surface of ice sheet”.
Advertisement
study suggests that glacier melting caused by global warming and climate change has caused oceans to rise on an aver of one millimetre per year. observations of researchers show that ice from ice sheets breaks off into icebergs or melts from glaciers into ocean.
Advertisement
According to study, sw gained during years 1980s and 90s through melted ice from glaciers was in complete balance. It kept ice sheet intact. During those years, ice sheets lost about 450 gigatonnes of ice each year from flowing outlet glaciers, which was n replaced with swfall. Michalea King said, "We are measuring pulse of ice sheet -- how much ice glaciers drain at edges of ice sheet -- which increases in summer. And what we see is that it was relatively stey until a big increase in ice discharging to ocean during a short five- to six-year period”. She ded, "Glaciers have been sensitive to seasonal melt for as long as we've been able to observe it, with spikes in ice discharge in summer. But starting in 2000, you start superimposing that seasonal melt on a higher baseline - so you're going to get even more losses”.
Advertisement
During study, researchers ticed that before year 2000, ice sheet would have gained or lost same amount of mass each year. However, in current climate, ice sheet will gain mass in only one out of every 100 years. Ian Howat, who is professor of earth sciences and distinguished university scholar at Ohio said that, "Glacier retreat has kcked dynamics of whole ice sheet into a constant state of loss”. "Even if climate were to stay same or even get a little colder, ice sheet would still be losing mass”, he ded.
Advertisement
(Im Credits: Unsplash)
19:30 IST, August 17th 2020