Study warns of cataclysmic melting of glaciers
JUN 25, 2009
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023458
Calgary Herald : It’s a little-known natural wonder along Baffin Island’s rugged east coast , a spectacular, 110-km-long channel lined by towering cliffs that âmdash; despite its extreme remoteness âmdash; is a mecca for base-jumping enthusiasts from around the world.But U.S. scientists who have reconstructed a cataclysmic glacial meltdown in prehistoric Canada say Nunavut’s Sam Ford Fiord is also a sentinel of danger in the age of climate change, showing just how quickly the planet’s massive coastal glaciers could disappear and send global sea levels surging. Their study , published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience , says the rapid melting of the fiord’s colossal, kilometre-deep glacier about 9,500 years ago is proof that similar features found today in Greenland, Canada and Antarctica could be lost “in a geologic instant.” Related Link Rapid early Holocene retreat of a Laurentide outlet glacier through an Arctic fjord
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
