Greenland glacier shrinking
JUL 18, 2012
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.026174
Washington Post : Global warming is taking its toll on the world’s glaciers. On Monday the Petermann Glacier, which connects Greenland’s ice sheet to the Arctic Ocean, was diminished significantly by the second major calving event in the past three years: A 120-km 2 chunk, about the size of Manhattan, broke off. In August 2010 the glacier lost a piece twice that sizeâmdash;the largest in the observational record for Greenland. Because 80% of glacier melt takes place under water, scientists attribute Monday’s event to warmer ocean temperatures. Whether the recent loss will cause the glacier’s flow rate to accelerate, as the 2010 event did, remains to be seen. To monitor Greenland’s ice sheet in real time, visit the National Snow and Ice Data Center website .
© 2012 American Institute of Physics
