FACTS

Greenland is in trouble. According to NASA, 2007 saw its worst year in history for the Greenland ice sheet to melt - a 30% increase since 1979- mostly on the western side. Greenland is covered by 630,000 cubic miles of ice, 11% of the world’s fresh water supply and enough water to raise global sea levels by 23 feet if all melted. Greenland could be losing more then 80 cubic miles of ice per year. That corresponds to  three times the volume of all the glaciers in the Alps.

ACCELERATION

The Greenland ice sheet now dumps nearly three times as much ice into the sea as it did 10 years ago—enough every 2 to 3 days during the melting season to supply New York City with fresh water for an entire year, scientists say.  The amount of ice flowing into the sea from Greenland’s ice cap now appears to be outpacing the buildup of snow further inland. Scientists have also observed an alarming increase in “ice quakes” due to glacial movement—measuring up to 5.0 on the Richter scale—raising questions about the ice sheet’s stability. These trends indicate that the accelerating melting of Greenland’s ice sheet increases the risk of dangerous sea-level rise sooner than previously predicted.

NEW MAPS 

With 27,555 miles of coastline and thousands of fjords, inlets, bays and straits, Greenland has always been hard to map. Now its geography is becoming obsolete almost as soon as new maps are created. Islands suddenly appear and the abrupt acceleration of melting in Greenland has taken climate scientists by surprise. Tidewater glaciers, which discharge ice into the oceans as they break up in the process called calving, have doubled and tripled in speed all over Greenland. Greenland had become the single largest contributor to global sea-level rise.

PROBLEMS ON THE ICECAP

The increase in temperatures in Greenland so far (7 degrees F) further threatens the ice sheet by causing lakes to form on the ice sheet’s surface. The meltwater then percolates downwards through massive cracks in the ice sheet called “moulins,” lubricating the base of the ice sheet and hastening the slide of glaciers towards the sea. As a result, several of Greenland’s largest glaciers are now flowing towards the sea at nearly 8 miles per year, twice as fast as they did just 5 years ago.