Greenland’s peripheral glaciers make up only four per cent of the island’s ice cover but are contributing up to 11 per cent of total ice loss from territory, say researchers of a paper published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Peripheral glaciers refer to the glaciers that are separate from the Greenland ice sheet, each with their own snowfall and melting areas. “Peripheral glaciers just don’t seem outwardly that important until you’ve actually surveyed them all together.”Outsized impactThe last survey of the peripheral glaciers ended in 2009. “Thousands of little peripheral glaciers are waking up and responding to climate change more quickly and more sensitively than the big ice sheet and turning into a net mass loss state faster than the big ice sheet,” Colgan said. “Understanding the peripheral glacier contribution to Greenland’s ice loss turns out to be a pretty big chunk so they’re disproportionately important.

Source: CBC News June 21, 2022 20:38 UTC