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hatrack

(59,446 posts)
Mon Jun 27, 2022, 08:05 AM Jun 2022

AGU - Greenland's Small Peripheral Glaciers Going Fast; 4% Of Ice Mass Producing 11% Of Meltwater

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Greenland’s many small glaciers are melting more rapidly as the Arctic warms, contributing to sea level rise, yet they are less well-studied than the main Greenland Ice Sheet. A new study documents about a 50% increase in melting in these small but important glaciers over the past two decades.

The new study, published today in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, focused on “peripheral” glaciers, which are glaciers with areas smaller than 0.05 km2 and do not receive ice flow or accumulation from the Greenland Ice Sheet.

There are around 20,300 peripheral glaciers in Greenland, and while they make up only about four percent of Greenland’s ice-covered areas, they contribute as much as 11 percent of the total loss of ice from Greenland’s ice-covered areas. This outsize melt rate means an outsize contribution to sea level rise.

Melting of peripheral glaciers has increased by more than 50% over the past two decades, as recorded by altimetry data from ICESat and ICESat-2, the study found. On average, 42.3 gigatons of ice melted per year from October 2018 to December 2021. In comparison, 27.2 gigatons melted annually from February 2003 to October 2009.

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/27/2105942/-Greenland-s-small-peripheral-glaciers-are-rapidly-melting-and-accelerating-sea-level-rise

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