Among all fears of the global warming aftermaths, the melting Arctic ice sheets and its consequences provide the maximum burns. But, do you know the Greenland is providing us with a compensating phenomenon? The island’s ice sheet is actually growing at its interior, the ESA scientists claim. The Envisat satellite is providing is a scientifically valuable long-term dataset covering Earth’s oceans and land as well as ice fields – which can be used to reduce uncertainty about whether land ice sheets are growing or shrinking as concern grows about the effects of global warming. Thanks to ESA.
The second largest concentration of frozen freshwater on Earth, the ice sheet covers Earth’s largest island of Greenland. It has an area of 1 833 900 square kilometres and an average thickness of 2.3 kilometers. If it were to melt completely global sea level would increase by up to seven meters. Though there is evidence of melting and thinning in the coastal marginal areas in recent years, as well as indications that large Greenland outlet glaciers can surge, possibly in response to climate variations, there is still no consensus assessment of the ice sheet’s overall mass balance.
Via: Universe Today