A new study has warned that in the last
decade two of the largest three glaciers in Greenland have lost enough
ice that, if melted, could have filled Lake Erie.
The three glaciers - Helheim, Kangerdlugssuaq and Jakobshavn Isbrae -
are responsible for as much as one-fifth of the ice flowing out from
Greenland into the ocean."Jakobshavn alone drains somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of all the ice flowing outward from inland to the sea," said Ian Howat, an assistant professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.
The new study suggested that, in the last decade, Jakobshavn Isbrae has lost enough ice to equal 11 years' worth of normal snow accumulation, approximately 300 gigatons (300 billion tons) of ice.
"Kangerdlugssuaq would have to stop flowing and accumulate snowfall for seven years to regain the ice it has lost," said Howat.
Surprisingly, the researchers found that the third glacier, Helheim, had actually gained a small amount of mass over the same period. It gained approximately one-fifteenth of what Jakobshavn had lost, he said.
The study appeared in the current issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. (ANI)
