Greenland's ice will melt faster than any time in the past 12,000 years

Greenland's ice will melt faster than any time in the past 12,000 years

The worst is yet to come for Greenland ice

The Greenland ice sheet is set to lose ice at a rate much higher than at any other time in our current epoch. An assessment of past, present and future ice loss show that, although present melt rates are comparable with the highest rates during the past 11,700 years, they will probably be surpassed in the future. The ice sheet is already increasing global mean sea level by about 0.7 millimetres per year. The good news: models also show that if we can slash carbon emissions, the ice sheet will recover. “If humanity really stepped up its game and became carbon neutral, it is conceivable that within a hundred or two hundred years the Greenland ice sheet might become stable,” geologist Jason Briner tells the Nature Podcast.

Nature Podcast | 35 min listen
Go deeper with the expert view from glaciologist Andy Aschwande in the Nature News & Views article.
Read more: Arctic science cannot afford a new cold war (Nature Editorial | 5 min read)Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.
Reference: Nature paper