Greenland Experiences Severe Ice Melting

Nearly half of Greenland’s ice sheet began melting this week after an unprecedented warm spell hit the Arctic region. Temperatures climbed more than 40 degrees above average, causing an estimated 2 billion tons of ice loss. Ted Scambos, senior research scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Earth Science Observation Center, joined CBSN to discuss.

Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier Reacts to Changing Ocean Temperatures

NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) mission uses ships and planes to measure how ocean temperatures affect Greenland’s vast icy expanses. Jakobshavn Glacier, known in Greenlandic as Sermeq Kujalle, on Greenland’s central western side, has been one of the island’s largest contributor’s to sea level rise, losing mass at an accelerating rate.

In a new study, the OMG team found that between 2016 and 2017, Jakobshavn Glacier grew slightly and the rate of mass loss slowed down. They traced the causes of this thickening to a temporary cooling of ocean temperatures in the region.

Narrated by OMG Principal Investigator Josh Willis.
Music: Rising Tides by Rainman [PRS] Complete transcript available.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Kathryn Mersmann