The Greenland ice sheet lost 5,091 km² of area between 1985 and 2022, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday (17), the first complete estimate of the loss of ice cap area on this scale.
The shrinkage reflects the 1,034 gigatons of ice that were lost as glaciers melted through a phenomenon in which chunks of ice break off from the edges of a glacier.
The study is the first to fully estimate the amount of ice lost by Greenland specifically due to glacial retreat. It further suggests that previous estimates of changes in the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet — which take into account the amount of snow and ice accumulated each year and the amount lost — underestimated these losses by up to 20% because they neglected retreat. glacial.
The 5,091 square kilometers lost represent an area roughly the size of the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
The study used more than 200,000 satellite and AI data of glacier positions to analyze changes over time.
“In Greenland, we have these areas around the edges where everything is just receding and falling apart,” said study co-author Alex Gardner, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Previous methods were not very good at measuring this change in the ice sheet. But the change is huge.”
The Greenland ice cap is one of two remaining ice sheets in the world. Made up of hundreds of glaciers, it covers around 80% of Greenland.
If completely melted, the Greenland ice sheet would raise global sea levels by about 7.4 meters.
With climate change warming the Arctic four times faster than the rest of the world, scientists say it is inevitable that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet will raise sea levels by at least 27 cm, given the warming that has already occurred.
The new estimate of ice loss due to glacial retreat would have little impact on global sea levels, scientists say, but a large impact on ocean circulation.
This amount of freshwater added to the salty ocean could strengthen coastal currents around Greenland and help weaken the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which moves water from north to south and brings heat to Europe.
Source: CNN Brasil
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