The melting ice sheet in Greenland is a major concern for rising sea levels. Runoff from melting ice accounts for at least half of the sea level rise.
But new research has shown that there is a discrepancy in the data used to calculate 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 from what climate models have shown.
The inaccuracies in the data led the team to collaborate with the scientists behind the model calculations. In conclusion, the group found that the subject of meltwater was much more complex than they had 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 the data.
Read the study here.
Check out this video on the melting ice in Greenland.
