Greenland is literally rising from the ocean as it loses limbs of glaciers: ScienceAlert

In an ironic coincidence of physics, Greenland – one of The main sources of melt water Flood the shores of the Earth – actually rising faster than Rising oceans.

The rising bedrock gradually creates new land in the Greenland Sea, including small islands and cliffs, e.g. Onartuk Qaqartaq. This new 13-kilometre (8-mile) long landmass off the east coast of Greenland, which translates as “warm island”, was officially recognized and added to maps of Greenland in 2005.

“The land rise we observe in Greenland these years cannot be explained solely by natural evolution after the Ice Age.” He explains Technical University of Denmark (DTU) Geodesy Shafqat Abbas Khan. “Greenland is rising significantly.”

Greenland has been rising gradually since the last ice age 12,000 years ago, and its frozen coat of water is slowly flowing into the sea. But data recorded from 58 GPS stations across the country (GNET) reveals that this melting is accelerating dramatically.

DTU geodesy scientist Dangal Longfors-Berg and his colleagues found that in the last decade or so Greenland's bedrock has risen by 20 centimeters (7.9 inches), a rate of about 2 meters (6.6 feet) per century.

“Thanks to our data from GNET, we can precisely isolate the part of land rise caused by current global climate changes.” He says Khan.

while Glaciers around Greenland They make up only 4% of the island's ice cover, and are responsible for approximately 15% of ice loss. It turns out that this significant decrease also contributes significantly to the rise in Earth's mass.

The loss of mass from these outer glaciers is causing greater upwelling in some areas than the loss of the main Greenland ice sheet, due to a process called elastic rebound.

This is where the previously compressed earth, now freed from the surrounding weight, relaxes into its naturally expanding shape like a compressed pillow released to take on a larger volume.

Kangerlussuaq The glacier in southeast Greenland, which has retreated by 10 kilometers since 1900, helped lead to the largest rise the team has ever measured, equivalent to 8 millimeters per year.

While previous studies have taken into account this process due to the loss of the main ice sheet, oceanic ice has not yet been fully taken into account. A better understanding of height will allow researchers to make more accurate estimates of sea surface height.

“These are very large land rises that we can now prove. They indicate that local changes in Greenland are occurring very quickly, affecting life in Greenland.” He explains Berg.

This strange phenomenon adds to a growing list of startling and widespread physical changes that climate change is bringing about in our world. Previous examples include contraction An entire layer of our atmosphere to Earth's axis shifted.

We are literally reshaping the Earth.

This research was published by Geophysical Research Letters.