HARROW: As the world prepares for the most important global climate summit yet – in Paris this month – news from Greenland could add urgency to the negotiations.
A glacier in north-east Greenland with enough ice to raise world ocean levels by half a metre has begun to slide more quickly towards the sea, extending ice losses to all corners of the vast remote island, a US study shows.
Because of warmer water temperatures, the end of the Zachariae Isstrom glacier floated free from a ridge of bedrock below sea level on which it had rested until 2012, the study, which was reported in the journal Science on Thursday, said.
Without that natural brake, the glacier in the cold north was now sliding more quickly and more icebergs were snapping off, adding a net five billion tonnes of ice a year to the oceans, according to the study based on satellite and aerial surveys.
