Scientists Uncover Troubling News About Greenland’s Biggest Glacier

"The largest glacier in Greenland is even more vulnerable to sustained ice losses than previously thought, scientists have reported.

Jakobshavn glacier, responsible for feeding flotillas of icebergs into the Ilulissat icefjord — and possibly for unleashing the iceberg that sank the Titanic — is an enormous outlet for the larger Greenland ice sheet, which itself contains enough ice to raise seas by more than 20 feet.

Of that ice, more than 6 percent flows toward the ocean through Jakobshavn, which has raced inland since the 1990s, pouring ever more of its mass into the seas — a change that scientists believe has been caused by warming ocean temperatures. If all of the ice that flows through this region were to melt, it would raise global sea levels by nearly two feet. Just from 2000 to 2011, the ice loss through Jakobshavn alone caused the global sea level to rise by a millimeter."

Chris Mooney reports for the Washington Post April 11, 2017.