Rapid snow retreat amplifies North Greenland mass loss
Meltwater runoff rivers in the ablation zone of western Greenland during summer 2019 (photo: Brice Noël)
The Greenland ice sheet has been losing mass at an accelerating rate since the early 1990s. A substantial part of the ice loss is driven by an increase in surface meltwater production that runs off to the ocean. In a study published today in Science Advances, researchers from Utrecht and Delft show that there is a large difference between mass loss in the North and South of Greenland, with runoff increasing twice as fast in North Greenland as in the South. The northern mass loss is triggered by a rapid snowline retreat in early summer, exposing dark bare ice and causing high runoff rates.
View the Pageflow about this research: Greenland Ice Loss > https://tudelft.pageflow.io/north-gris#222964
More information
Brice Noël, Willem Jan van de Berg, Stef Lhermitte, Michiel van den Broeke, Rapid ablation zone expansion amplifies north Greenland mass loss, https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/9/eaaw0123, Sciences Advances, 4 September 2019
Read the complete press release on the website of the University of Utrecht > https://www.uu.nl/en/news/rapid-snow-retreat-amplifies-north-greenland-mass-loss
Contact Stef Lhermitte: https://www.tudelft.nl/staff/s.lhermitte/ and https://twitter.com/StefLhermitte
Advisor science communcication TU Delft Roy Meijer, 015-2781751, r.e.t.meijer@tudelft.nl