Ask a Climate Scientist: Thinning Ice Sheets

af | 17. september 2015 | Arktis/Antarktis

How can Greenland’s ice sheets still be more than 10,000 feet thick, if carbon dioxide is warming the planet?

This was the question posed to polar scientist Kelly Brunt as part of NASA’s Ask A Climate Scientist series. According to Dr. Brunt, the concept of thickness is very important to polar scientists. It is easy to see that the ice sheets and sea ice are changing horizontally (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=4301), covering less and less of the polar regions. But the ice is also thinning, getting smaller vertically.

Greenland’s ice is very thick and only the outer layer is experiencing warming temperatures. But that layer is melting more often (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=4325) and a little bit of melting over such a large area produces a lot of extra water contributing to sea level rise.

See more of NASA’s answers to your questions on climate science (http://bit.ly/1b7rSdL).

NASA Goddard