UM conducts study of Greenland ice loss

Town Crier “Briefs from the Region” (2) – 10/7/20

Greenland’s ice sheet may see the greatest ice loss ever, University of Montana researchers concluded. Recently published in the journal Nature, Greenland will lose more ice this century than in the past 12,000 years if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed. Using a method called ice sheet modeling, the team was able to trace the island’s ice sheet from the Holocene epoch 12,000 years ago and project the ice sheet’s future into 2100.

“Basically, we’ve altered our planet so much that the rates of ice sheet melt this century are on pace to be greater than anything we’ve seen under natural variability of the ice sheet over the past 12,000 years,” said Jason Briner, professor of geology at the University at Buffalo, and the lead for the study.