THE JOLLY BUCCANEERS

At 1.7 million square kilometers (660,000 square miles), the Greenland ice sheet is three times the size of Texas. On average, the ice is about 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) deep and contains enough water to raise global sea levels about 6 meters (20 feet) if it were all to melt.

Global sea level rise is one of the major environmental challenges of the 21st Century, and Greenland is central to the problem. That massive ice sheet touches the sea along more than 44,000 kilometers (27,000 miles) of jagged coastline. Hundreds of fjords, inlets, and bays bring ocean water right to the edge of the ice and, in some places, under it. This means the ice sheet is not just melting from warm air temperatures above; it is also likely being melted from water below.

To be Continues on

http://m.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87813

This entry was posted on April 6, 2016 at 12:11 am and is filed under 2016 with tags earth observatory Nasa, Global sea level rise, Global Warming, Ice, OMG Is the Ocean Melting the Ice?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.