What Greenland’s melting ice sheet means for you

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by SueEllen Campbell

Recent studies of Greenland’s enormous ice sheet are helping to illuminate our planet’s past and present — in ways that inform our vision of our future. Several of the articles included below are especially engaging for armchair scientists and adventurers, and these are marked with asterisks.**

Ice cores

Greenland’s melting ice will have a large impact on global sea level rise and thus matters greatly to millions of people, including those in some of the largest cities. Ice cores preserve a lot of information about Earth’s past climates. But those cores also contain an archive of human history, as this opinion piece explains:

• “Our greatest libraries are melting away.” David Farrier, Washington Post.

For an interesting account of the effort to preserve ice cores before they melt, taking with them their rich archives, see “The race to preserve Earth’s historical climate record—its ice,” by Katherine Bourzac at Chemical & Engineering News (one free article per month).

Soil and rock cores

How long ago was it that the ground beneath the ice sheet was ice-free? These stories are about this deep history.

• “Ancient leaves preserved under a mile of Greenland’s ice — and lost in a freezer for years — hold lessons about climate change.”** Andrew Christ and Paul Bierman, The Conversation. To read about this work, see the Washington Post’s excellent climate journalist Sarah Kaplan’s piece, “Ancient soil shows part of Greenland was ice-free — and could soon melt again, scientists say.”
• “Buried under the ice.” Sarah Kaplan, Bonnie Jo Mount, and others, Washington Post.** “Scientists came to Greenland on an unprecedented mission to drill for rocks that would reveal the fate of this fast-melting ice sheet”: a compelling (and visually appealing) interactive story of scientific effort, frustration, and last-minute success. For a non-interactive companion article about this expedition, one with good contextual information about Greenland, see “What Arctic ice tells us about climate change.” Sarah Kaplan, Washington Post.

A treasure trove of old photos

• “180,000 forgotten photos reveal the future of Greenland’s ice.”** Quirin Schiermeier, Nature. Focused on the work of Danish ice historian and adventurer Anders Bjørk. 
• “Glaciers lost in time.” Shamini Bundell, Nature. A good, short video to accompany and illustrate Schiermeir’s article.
• “Thousands of Greenland’s glaciers are rapidly shrinking. Before-and-after photos reveal decades of change.” Rachel Ramirez, CNN. A short piece with more vividly paired photos, set up with a sliding bar between past and present views.

Overviews of recent science — how ice sheets melt, recent changes, and more

• “Extreme rain from atmospheric rivers and ice-heating micro-cracks are ominous new threats to the Greenland ice sheet.” Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News. As always from this science journalist, readable and informative.
• “Meltwater is infiltrating Greenland’s ice sheet through millions of hairline cracks— destabilizing its structure.”** Alun Hubbard, The Conversation. A first-person account from an ice sheet scientist.
• “Insane flooding rain to Greenland — rapids in an atmospheric river.” Jason Box, YouTube. Clear and interesting, as usual with this scientist, but sometimes pretty technical too — though the most technical bits are accompanied by visually fascinating graphics. 
• “Two studies on Greenland reveal ominous signs for sea level rise.” Delger Erdenesanaa, New York Times. 
• “Greenland’s ice shelves hold back sea level rise. There are just 5 left.” Chris Mooney, Washington Post. (These last two cover some of same scientific studies as above but from different angles and with different specifics.)

To dig deeper:

• “Earthward: Ice Melt.” John Perona, From Knowledge to Power newsletter. A comprehensive discussion of recent Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet studies.
• “How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2023.” An annual report, with links to previous versions.

Posted by Guest Author on Wednesday, 10 January, 2024

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