Ice Sheets Retreat in a Geologic Instant
26.06.2009 - Ice & Snow, Other, Arctic, Antarctic
Recently published in Nature Geoscience, new research conducted by the State University of New York, Buffalo provides one of the few explicit confirmations for the rapid shrinkage or retreat of modern glaciers. This study has serious implications for similar glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland.
Assistant professor of geology at the UB College of Arts and Sciences and lead author on the paper in the Nature Geoscience, Dr. Jason Briner, describes fieldwork samples on a prehistoric glacier in the Canadian Arctic, which retreated in what he calls a "geologic instant" of a few hundred years.
Research results suggest that the period of rapid retreat began once the glacier entered deep ocean waters, about 1 kilometer deep. According to Briner, these findings are especially relevant to Greenland's largest and fastest moving tidewater glacier, Jakobshavn Isbrae, and could explain its current retreat. Briner concludes by saying that these contemporary tidewater glaciers could experience even faster rates of retreat than that which are currently observed if they continue to retreat into deep waters.
While the findings of this research do not augur well for global sea levels and coastal populations, it will help scientists better predict how global warming is likely to affect ice sheets.
