At first glance Greenland is an expanse of blinding white. But as my chopper swings low over the island, color catches my eye. For miles on end, bands of blue meltwater fringe the ice sheet. Fields of white are threaded with riv
If some of the spectacular calving of ice shelves in Antarctica is down to global warming, then why did we not see break-ups on the same scale in Greenland, which is much warmer?
Sea levels during the last interglacial stage (about 125 kyr ago) are known to have been higher than today, and may serve as a partial analogue for anthropogenic warming scenarios. However, because local sea levels differ from global sea level, accurately reconstructing past global sea level requires an integrated analysis of globally distributed data sets.
This study by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program estimates that the sea will rise by 0.5 to 1.5 meters by 2100, threatening coastal cities and flooding island nations. This is double the predicted rise estimated by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change (IPCC) in 2007, which did not incorporate sea level rise due to the melting of Greenland and Antarctica's ice sheets.
Greenland has lost about 1,500 cubic kilometres of ice between 2000 and 2008, which is responsible for one-sixth of global sea level rise, scientists have claimed.
