Greenland ice sheet shrinks by record amount - climate study

(Reuters, 15 Apr 2020) The massive melt was partly due to atmospheric circulation patterns that have become more frequent because of climate change.

Greenland's ice sheet shrank by more than at any time since record-taking began last year, according to a study published on Wednesday that showed the risk that climate change could cause sharp rises in global sea levels.

The huge melt was due not only to warm temperatures, but also atmospheric circulation patterns that have become more frequent due to climate change, suggesting scientists may be underestimating the threat to the ice, the authors found.

"We're destroying ice in decades that was built over thousands of years," Marco Tedesco, research professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who led the study, told Reuters. "What we do here has huge implications for everywhere else in the world."

Greenland's ice sheet, the world's second largest, recorded its biggest outright drop in what scientists call "surface mass" since record-keeping began in 1948, according to the study.

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Reuters, 15 Apr 2020: Greenland ice sheet shrinks by record amount - climate study