Greenland is losing more ice than we thought. Here’s what it means for our oceans.
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The Greenland ice sheet has lost 20 percent more ice than scientists previously thought, posing potential problems for ocean circulation patterns and sea level rise, according to a new study.
Researchers had previously estimated that the Greenland ice sheet lost about 5,000 gigatons of ice in recent decades, enough to cover Texas in a sheet 26 feet high. The new estimate adds 1,000 gigatons to that period, the equivalent of piling about five more feet of ice on top of that fictitious Texas-sized sheet.
Most striking, nearly every glacier was shrinking — and in every corner of the ice sheet.
“This is a signal that’s touching every part of Greenland,” said Chad Greene, the study’s lead author and a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “There’s basically no part of Greenland that’s safe from climate change.”
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