The Greenland glaciers have passed the point of no return, and even if climate change stops, the ice sheet will continue to decline. This was reported in the journal Nature Communications, Earth and Environment.
The researchers conducted remote sensing of glaciers to determine the balance between nutrition and consumption of the ice sheet of Greenland. Satellite data cover more than 200 major glaciers, melt-water from which drains into the surrounding ocean Isle. It turned out that the region was a time, when the snowfall, annually replenishing the glaciers, no longer able to compensate for the losses associated with the fact that the ice is melting.
During the 80-ies and 90-ies of XX century, the arrival of fresh snow and melting ice were in a state of equilibrium, while maintaining the integrity of the ice sheet. Over the decades, ice sheets lost annually about 450 billion tons of ice, however, until recently this was offset by the snowfall. Since 2000 years, for a short period of 5-6 years, the amount of melting ice has increased dramatically. A year melted about 500 gigatons of ice, but the power of the glacier has not increased. This means that the ice sheet of Greenland will gain weight only one year out of a hundred.
Glaciers decreased so that a greater quantity of ice was no longer in contact with the bottom of the ocean and now is washed with water. Warm ocean water contributes to the rapid melting of the glacier. If people would somehow stop climate change, the area of the Greenland shield would continue to decline for some time.
Last year the melting of the Greenland ice sheet was so strong that the ocean rose by 2.2 mm in just two months.
