In Greenland, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as across the rest of the world, the icy, rocky landscape is turning increasingly green, a new study finds.
In Greenland, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as across the rest of the world, the icy, rocky landscape is turning increasingly green, a new study finds.
An analysis of satellite records shows that, over the last three decades, Greenland has lost 11,000 square miles of ice, an area roughly the size of Massachusetts. As melting gains pace, ice is increasingly giving way to tundra and shrubland. “At the same time, water released from the melting ice is moving sediment and silt, and that eventually forms wetlands and fenlands,” said Jonathan Carrivick, a scientist at the University of Leeds and coauthor of the study.
From the late 1980s to the late 2010s, the research found, the parts of Greenland covered by vegetation more than doubled in size, growing by roughly 33,000 square miles, an area the size of Maine. The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Read more at Yale Environment 360
Photo Credit: Summersdale via Pixabay
