Satellite data has given scientists clues about how, when and why Greenland’s glaciers are shrinking – and shows a sharp increase in glacial retreat beginning about 2000, according to new research presented this week.
Satellite data has given scientists clues about how, when and why Greenland’s glaciers are shrinking – and shows a sharp increase in glacial retreat beginning about 2000, according to new research presented this week.
In a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, scientists released time-lapse satellite images dating back 34 years of about 200 glaciers on the island of Greenland. The images are the first to compare Greenland’s glacier retreat – when a glacier shrinks back from the ocean, pulling inland – and the speed at which the glaciers are retreating.
“These glaciers are calving more ice into the ocean than they were in the past,” said Michalea King, who presented the research at AGU. King is a graduate student in earth sciences at The Ohio State University. “We’re finding this clear correlation where more retreat instigates greater discharge of ice.”
To evaluate the glaciers, King analyzed images from the NASA-U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat missions, an ongoing project to monitor the Earth’s surface from space. The satellites survey much of the Earth’s surface; scientists at AGU also presented on changes to glaciers and ice fields in Alaska and Antarctica.
Read more at Ohio State University
Image: In a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, scientists released satellite images that, for the first time, show how fast Greenland's glaciers are retreating. The image show a sharp increase in retreat beginning around 2000. (Credit: Michalea King)
