Scientists finally have an explanation for why huge lakes atop Greenland are vanishing - The Washington Post

Scientists finally have an explanation for why huge lakes atop Greenland are vanishing - The Washington Post: "Understanding how meltwater atop Greenland makes its way to the ocean is critical, because the drainage can increase sea level directly, but also by lubricating the flow of glaciers out to the sea, where they calve off icebergs. And melting at the top of Greenland in summer seems to be growing — punctuated by a dramatic event in the summer of 2012, in which, according to NASA, fully 97 percent of the ice sheet surface saw melting.

A recent study estimated that from 2009 through 2012, the Greenland ice sheet lost 378 gigatons of ice annually (plus or minus 50 gigatons) – where a gigaton is a billion metric tons. Three hundred and sixty gigatons are enough to raise the global sea level by one millimeter. The overall annual sea level rise was recently estimated at 2.6 to 2.9 millimeters, which would make Greenland about a third of the total."



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