greenland

High Levels of Mercury Found in Greenland’s Glaciers

High Levels of Mercury Found in Greenland’s Glaciers

By Isabela Martel When British environmental geochemist Jon Hawkings arrived in Greenland for the first time in 2012, he was impressed. “It’s mind-blowing: You look onto the horizon and it’s just ice and it goes on for 150, 200 kilometers at least.” He went to the Arctic with a group of international scientists. Their goal […]

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    Greenland and Antarctica Already Melting at ‘Worst-Case-Scenario’ Rates

    Greenland and Antarctica Already Melting at ‘Worst-Case-Scenario’ Rates

    Antarctica and Greenland‘s ice sheets are currently melting at a pace consistent with worst-case-scenario predictions for sea level rise, with serious consequences for coastal communities and the reliability of climate models. A paper published in Nature Climate Change Monday compared the latest satellite observations of polar ice melt with the predictions outlined in the Intergovernmental […]

    Record Shrinking of Greenland’s Ice Sheet Raises Sea Levels

    Record Shrinking of Greenland’s Ice Sheet Raises Sea Levels

    Greenland’s kilometers-long ice sheet underwent near-record imbalance last year, scientists have reported on Wednesday. The ice sheet suffered a net loss of 600 billion tons, which was enough to raise the global watermark 1.5 millimeters, accounting for approximately 40% of total sea-level rise in 2019. The alarming development was reported in “The Cryosphere,” a peer-reviewed […]

    Coronavirus Halts Arctic Climate Change Research

    Coronavirus Halts Arctic Climate Change Research

    By Alex Matthews Every year 150 climate scientists fly far into the wilderness and bore deep into Greenland’s largest glacier. Their work is complicated and important. The EastGRIP project is trying to understand how ice streams underneath the glacier are pushing vast amounts of ice into the ocean, and how this contributes to rising sea […]

    Polar Ice Caps Melting Six Times Faster Than in the 1990s

    Polar Ice Caps Melting Six Times Faster Than in the 1990s

    The polar ice caps are melting six times faster than they were in the 1990s, the most comprehensive look at the data to date has found. That data, compiled and analyzed by the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (IMBIE), puts the melting of Greenland and Antarctica‘s ice sheets on track with the worst-case-scenario prediction […]