Chapter 171

Greenland's Ice Sheet Contains 10 Percent Of The World's Glacial Ice..And It's Melting Fast!

It's the second largest ice mass on Earth after the Antarctic ice sheet, and it contains enough water to raise ocean levels by at least 20 feet. (If you're wondering, global sea levels would rise by more than 260 feet if every glacier and ice sheet on Earth melted.)The Greenland ice sheet's melt rate is accelerating at a sobering rate: According to a study published earlier this year in the journal Nature Climate Change, the ice sheet now loses a mind-boggling 8000 tons per second. Scientists are studying Greenland's ice sheet to document its past behavior in the hopes of better understanding how it may respond to climate change.