An international team of scientists is determined to understand how quickly the Greenland glaciers are melting and bringing the Atlantic Ocean to a “critical climate tipping point.”
As part of a five-year project called GIANT (Greenland Ice sheet to Atlantic Tipping Points), researchers from 17 partner institutions – under the direction of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) – will embark on a two-month expedition to the autonomous island this summer.
Funded by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), the project aims to enable researchers to assess the amount of meltwater released by Greenland’s fjord glaciers, how it flows into the North Atlantic Ocean, and the impact of this process on the global climate system.
Why the Greenland Tipping Point Concerns Everyone
The reduction of Greenland’s ice caps has already contributed to about one-fifth of the rise in sea levels, as heat-trapping emissions continue to raise temperatures.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Greenland’s ice cap contains enough water to raise sea levels by 7.4 meters if it were to melt completely. For every centimeter of sea-level rise, nearly six million people worldwide are at risk of coastal flooding.
The melting of Greenland’s ice also releases large amounts of fresh water into the ocean, which could disrupt a significant Atlantic current system known as the subpolar gyre. This system transports tropical heat to the North Atlantic and regulates temperatures and climate in Europe and North America. Some estimates warn that the subpolar gyre could change within four years.
At the Heart of Understanding Greenland Glacier Melt
Despite these alarming implications, scientists still lack a clear picture of how Greenland’s fjord glaciers and the approximately 200 narrow fjords on the island actually interact with the surrounding ocean.
This is why researchers are heading to Greenland this summer, equipped with a “sophisticated set” of technologies including aerial drones, autonomous marine robots, satellites, and instruments that can be directly embedded in the glacier ice.
This coordinated observation system will allow researchers to get closer to the glaciers, analyzing individual ice cracks as well as the flow of meltwater and icebergs into the North Atlantic.
These data will then be integrated into several computer models to develop a prototype early warning system capable of detecting rapid glacier changes in advance.
“This is an extremely ambitious and urgent project,” explains Dr. Kelly Hohan, co-creator of GIANT and a climatologist at BAS.
“We know that Greenland is losing ice at an unprecedented rate, and this will have repercussions on the surrounding ocean – from the coastal fjords, so important to Greenlandic communities, to the major currents that bring warmth to Western Europe.”
GIANT will focus on two types of glaciers in Greenland that provide contrasting but complementary insights into their stability. These are the ocean-terminating glaciers near Kangerlussuaq in southeast Greenland, and the Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland.
“Attempting to build modeling systems capable of capturing abrupt glacier changes is bold and risky,” says Professor Paul Holland, who leads the numerical modeling work for GIANT.
“The science is complex, and there is a real risk that we may not be able to predict sudden ice losses.”
Even if the project does not go as planned, Holland believes that scientists will still enhance their climate prediction capabilities and their understanding of how Greenland could impact the ocean in the future.
An Early Warning System for Greenland Glaciers
Researchers hope that by working on the development of an early warning system, governments can better prepare to adapt to the consequences of climate change.
This online system would combine satellite observations, field data, and statistical glacier modeling to predict when ice losses to the North Atlantic could suddenly accelerate.
According to Sarah Bohndiek from ARIA’s Forecasting Tipping Points program, scientists currently cannot predict when climate tipping points may be crossed, leaving us “ill-prepared to deal with potentially irreversible consequences” associated with surpassing these thresholds.
“Developing an early warning system is necessary to provide governments, the industrial world, and society at large with the information they need to enhance their resilience and accelerate proactive climate adaptation,” she adds.
This text has been translated with the help of artificial intelligence. Report a problem: feedback-articles-fr@euronews.com.
