Large cracks on the icy covers of Greenland spread significantly and deepened in just 5 years, a new 3D map showed. This means that this land mass secures faster than scientists previously thought, writes Livescience.
Most of these cracks is located around the edge of the ice blanket, from where they drain melted ice into the ocean. In addition, cracks push melted water and heat under the glacier on the mainland, and scientists believe it can lead to a domino effect that would cause catastrophic melting of those glaciers and jumping sea level.
The icy blanket covers about 80 percent of the land Greenland and is 3 miles on the thickest part. Water that forms by melting this ice is already the main source of the sea level, which is 14 millimeters from the 1990s, said Tomas Chadley, Glaciological University in Darama and the main author of the study, in the video.
Melting leads to a faster flow of water down the slopes and valleys, which additionally spends an icy blanket, he explained.
“How the melting accelerates, we can expect the creation of new and even deeper cracks – he said.
In the study published in Nature Geoscience, they compared 3D crack folders from 2016. and 2021. It can be seen that cracks increased by 25 percent.
– How crack growth, they feed on the mechanism that accelerates everything. The process can accelerate the flow of ice and lead to a domino effect that could solve ice on Greenland dramatically, “Jan Hauat, Professor Glaziology at the Ohio State University.
Earlier calculations show that if the Ice blanket of Greenland is melted, the level must jump in 7 meters, which would jeopardize billions of people around the planet.
– If we continue the current way, we can see that the level must jump 10 or as much as 20 meters only because of Greenland and Atlantic – Chadley said.
(Vijesti.ba)
