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Greenland Glaciers Lose Enough Ice to Fill Lake Erie, Study Says

26.05.2011

The rate of ice loss at two of Greenland’s largest glaciers has increased so much over the last decade that, if melted, the amount would be enough to fill Lake Erie, according to a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Researchers found that the rate of ice loss from the Jakobshavn and Kangerdlugssuaq glaciers far exceeded the amount needed to balance snowfall in their catchment basins. Jakobshavn had lost about 300 billion tons of ice and it “would have to stop flowing and accumulate snowfall for seven years to regain the ice it has lost,” said Ian Howat of Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar Research Center. However, researchers found that the Helheim glacier had actually gained a small amount of mass over the same period. New techniques has been used to calculate ice loss that include greater reliance on satellite data, as well as airplanes and other sources.