Since 1980s, Vegetated Areas In Greenland Have More Than Doubled To Nearly 34,000 Square MIles
Significant areas of Greenland’s melted ice sheet are now producing vegetation, risking increased greenhouse gas emissions, rising sea levels and instability of the landscape.
A study has documented the change since the 1980s and shows that large areas of ice have been replaced with barren rock, wetlands and shrub growth, creating a change in environment. Analysis of satellite records has shown that over the past three decades an estimated 11,000 sq miles of Greenland’s ice sheet and glaciers have melted, an area equivalent to the size of Albania and amounting to 1.6% of its total ice cover.
As ice has retreated, the amount of land with vegetation growing on it has increased by 33,774 sq miles, more than twice the area covered when the study began. The findings show a near-quadrupling of wetlands across Greenland, which are a source of methane emissions.
The greatest increase in dense wetland vegetation occurred in the vicinity of Kangerlussuaq in the south-west and in isolated areas in the north-east. The scientists say warmer air temperatures are causing the ice to retreat and since the 1970s the region has been heating up at double the global average rate. On Greenland, the average annual air temperatures between 2007 and 2012 were 3C warmer than the average between 1979 and 2000.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/13/flourishing-vegetation-greenland-ice-sheet-alarm-climate-crisis