Greenland ice-melt 'speeding up'

[indigobusiness]

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Nothing prepares you for the sheer scale and drama of events in this forbidding terrain and all the signs are that the changes at work here are gathering pace.


A hundred years ago the glacier reached into the sea

Cracks and crevasses

In 2001 NASA scientists published a major study based on observations by satellite and aircraft.


Scientists have traced the retreat of the Sermilik glacier
It concluded that the margins of the Greenland ice-sheet were dropping in height at a rate of roughly one metre a year.

Now, amid some of the most hostile conditions anywhere on the planet, Carl Boggild and his team have recorded falls as dramatic as 10 metres a year - in places the ice is dropping at a rate of one metre a month.

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Engravings from the late 19th Century show how the glacier once reached far into the ocean and satellite pictures highlight how the retreat has accelerated - the glacier dropping an astounding 150 metres in the last 15 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3922579.stm

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