Uncovering the Mysteries of Greenland's Accelerated Ice Melting

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have discovered that the grounding line of Greenland’s Petermann Glacier shifts during tidal cycles, allowing warm seawater to accelerate ice melt. This previously unknown interaction could cause a 200% increase in sea level rise projections for ocean-ending glaciers if included in models. The researchers found that as Petermann Glacier’s grounding line retreated nearly 4 kilometers between 2016 and 2022, warm water carved a 670-foot-tall cavity in the underside of the glacier, and that abscess remained there for all of 2022.