The Greenland ice sheet: a global warming signal?
The Greenland ice sheet contains about a tenth of the world’s fresh water, and if it were to melt would cause a 7 m rise in global sea-level (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001). The ice sheet covers 82% of the total area of Greenland (Ohmura et al. 1999). It is a huge ice dome, w...
| Published in: | Weather |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
| Published: |
Wiley for Royal Meteorological Society
2003
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/id/eprint/26172/ https://doi.org/10.1256/wea.248.02 |
| Summary: | The Greenland ice sheet contains about a tenth of the world’s fresh water, and if it were to melt would cause a 7 m rise in global sea-level (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001). The ice sheet covers 82% of the total area of Greenland (Ohmura et al. 1999). It is a huge ice dome, with two main peaks: one at 3220 m at Summit (about 728N, 298W), and the other at 2850 m in the south at about 648N, 448W (Philip 1999) (Fig. 1). The ice sheet is up to about 3 km thick in the middle, and its great weight depresses the underlying crust which assumes the concave shape of a saucer. The ice sheet has waxed and waned in response to natural changes in insolation and climatic feedbacks over millennia. |
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