14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists were recently able to determine that the entire island of Greenland is rising extremely fast from the waters. They say that losing its ice sheets, icebergs and caps makes the land a lot lighter. With this massive weight removed, the land is soaring upwards at rates of up to 1 inch per year. In geological terms, this is lightning fast, experts explain. The ice caps covering Greenland are in some places as much as 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) thick, and so removing them is bound to have significant influences on the overall topology and geography of the island, LiveScience reports.
According to experts, it would appear that the entire region should have now had a much higher altitude than it actually does. They say that the millions upon millions of tons of ice pressing down on the land have forced it to remain at lower levels. The situation can be compared to that of a ball placed on a spring. Naturally, the ball, being light, would be pushed up as much as the spring could carry it. But, if you continuously press down on it with your finger, then the spring would not be able to defeat the force you are exerting. As you gently remove the finger, the spring begins to unfold, pushing the ball up to its final position. This is, in a simplified form, what's going on in Greenland now.
The situation is not unique to the island. Other places, which were usually covered in ices but are now losing it, experience the same effect. A note-worthy example in this direction is the European Alps, which geologists proved to be growing due to diminishing ice caps. The areas that exhibit the highest amount of rise are those that have been covered in glaciers for millions of years. University of Miami experts, who were in charge of analyzing Greenland, say that the situation is clearer in this case because the speed at which the land rises accelerates as the island loses increasing amount of ice.
“It's been known for several years that climate change is contributing to the melting of Greenland's ice sheet. What's surprising, and a bit worrisome, is that the ice is melting so fast that we can actually see the land uplift in response. Even more surprising, the rise seems to be accelerating, implying that melting is accelerating,” explains University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) professor of geophysics Tim Dixon, who was the principal investigator of the new effort. Details of the work appear in the latest online issue of the esteemed scientific journal Nature Geoscience.
“During ice ages and in times of ice accumulation, the ice suppresses the land. When the ice melts, the land rebounds upwards. Our study is consistent with a number of global warming indicators, confirming that ice melt and sea-level rise are real and becoming significant,” concludes RSMAS research associate professor Shimon Wdowinski, who is a coauthor of the Nature paper.