The jagged terrain of Greenland’s mountains is protecting some of the island’s outlet glaciers from warm coastal waters, according to a team of researchers that included scientists from The University of Texas at Austin and NASA.
The jagged terrain of Greenland’s mountains is protecting some of the island’s outlet glaciers from warm coastal waters, according to a team of researchers that included scientists from The University of Texas at Austin and NASA.
Outlet glaciers protrude from the ice sheet into the sea, where surging ocean heat can speed up the loss of ice, making the glaciers thinner and raising sea levels. The scientists found that steep slopes in the bedrock under the ice form stabilizing areas the researchers termed “knickpoints” that prevent coastal thinning from reaching further inland.
The findings were published Dec. 11 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“Thinning in glaciers originates at the edge of the ice, and makes its way inland,” said lead author Denis Felikson, a NASA research scientist. “When the thinning reaches a knickpoint that is steep enough, it’s halted.”
Read more at University of Texas at Austin
Image: The study's lead author Denis Felikson, now a research scientist at USRA and NASA, on a field visit to Root Glacier in Alaska when he was a doctoral student at UT's Jackson School. (Credit: Denis Felikson)
