The melting ice sheet in Greenland is a major concern when it comes to the rising sea level. Runoff from the melting ice contributes to at least half of sea level rise.
But new research has shown that there has been a discrepancy in data involving calculations of this meltwater runoff in climate models due to something scientists have not seen before.
A team of scientists and graduate students focused on studying a 27-mile watershed on the glacier. What they found showed a large difference in meltwater amounts than what climate models have shown
The inaccuracies in the data led the team to collaborate with the scientists behind the model calculations, and in conclusion, the group found that the subject of meltwater was much more complex than they thought.
The group found that the meltwater runoff sometimes does not go directly to the ocean; it ends up in sinkholes called “moulins” and is trapped inside ‘low-density, porous “rotten ice.”’ This runoff has not been included in previous models, which revealed the source of the discrepancies in data.
Read more about this collaboration here.
Or, read the study here.
Check out this video on the melting ice in Greenland:
