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An unsettling new video depicts 13 years of melting at the Greenland Ice Sheet. The video was compiled using data from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) satellites.
The footage illustrates that the periphery of the ice sheet is melting more quickly than its center, especially in areas where glaciers flow into the ocean. Recent findings indicate that from 2010 to 2023, Greenland experienced a loss of 563 cubic miles (2,347 cubic kilometers) of ice, which is sufficient to fill Africa’s largest lake, Lake Victoria. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Greenland Ice Sheet has been losing mass since 1998, and it currently stands as the second-largest contributor to rising sea levels, following the expansion of water due to increased temperatures.
The study, released on Dec. 20 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, focused not only on quantifying ice loss. Both NASA and ESA maintain satellites that monitor the area closely. ESA’s CryoSat-2 employs radar technology to gauge the height of Earth’s surface, whereas NASA’s ICESat-2 utilizes laser measurements. Each method has its advantages and drawbacks, and researchers aimed to ensure the two measurements yielded comparable outcomes and could be merged for enhanced precision.
The findings demonstrated that they can: CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2 varied by no more than 3% in their evaluations of the elevation alterations on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their combined results indicated that the ice sheet decreased in thickness by an average of 3.9 feet (1.2 meters) over 13 years.
However, that average figure masks significant variations across the ice sheet. The edges of the ice sheet lost an average of 21 feet (6.4 m). Outlet glaciers experienced the most severe loss, with a maximum depletion of 246 feet (75 m) at the Zachariae Isstrøm glacier. The most significant losses appear in dark red in the new video created from the gathered data.
Since 2020, CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2 have been following identical paths — a collaborative effort between ESA and NASA to guarantee that the data collected by both satellites is simultaneous and in sync.
“It’s commendable to observe that the data from ‘sister missions’ are crafting a coherent image of the transformations occurring in Greenland,” Thorsten Markus, project scientist for NASA’s ICESat-2 mission, remarked in a statement. “Grasping the similarities and distinctions between radar and lidar measurements of ice sheet height empowers us to fully leverage the complementary attributes of these satellite missions.”
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