Cracks in Greenland Ice Sheet Expand Quickly As a Result of Climate Change

A new study led by Durham University reveals that crevasses in the Greenland Ice Sheet are expanding more quickly due to climate change, potentially accelerating ice loss and sea level rise.

The Greenland Ice Sheet is showing unprecedented signs of rapid change due to climate change, according to a new study published in Nature Geoscience. The research, led by Tom Chudley of Durham University, indicates that crevasses in the ice sheet are expanding more quickly than previously observed, which could accelerate the loss of ice from Greenland.

Significant Findings

Using over 8,000 three-dimensional surface maps generated from high-resolution satellite imagery, the researchers detected a notable increase in the size and depth of crevasses along the fast-flowing edges of the ice sheet between 2016 and 2021.

“In a warming world, we would expect to see more crevasses forming. This is because glaciers are accelerating in response to warmer ocean temperatures, and because meltwater filling crevasses can force fractures deeper into the ice. However, until now we haven’t had the data to show where and how fast this is happening across the entirety of the Greenland Ice Sheet,” Chudley, a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Geography at Durham University, said in a news release.

“For the first time, we are able to see significant increases in the size and depth of crevasses at fast-flowing glaciers at the edges of the Greenland Ice Sheet, on timescales of five years and less,” he added. “With this dataset we can see that it’s not just that crevasse fields are extending into the ice sheet, as previously observed — instead, change is dominated by existing crevasse fields getting larger and deeper.”

Potential Impact of Findings

The development of deeper and wider crevasses could exacerbate the mechanisms driving ice loss from Greenland.

Co-author Ian Howat, the director of the Byrd Polar & Climate Research Center at The Ohio State University, emphasized the repercussive nature of these phenomena.

“As crevasses grow, they feed the mechanisms that make the ice sheet’s glaciers move faster, driving water and heat to the interior of the ice sheet and accelerating the calving of icebergs into the ocean,” he said in the news release. “These processes can in turn speed up ice flow and lead to the formation of more and deeper crevasses — a domino effect that could drive the loss of ice from Greenland at a faster pace.”

Greenland, which has accounted for approximately 14mm of sea level rise since 1992, contains enough ice to contribute up to seven meters (23 feet) of global sea level rise if fully melted.

Previous research suggests that Greenland’s ice melt could add as much as 30cm (one foot) to sea levels by the end of the century.

Long-Term Monitoring and Implications

The study leveraged imagery from the ArcticDEM project, a high-resolution digital surface model of the Arctic developed through a public-private partnership between the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). This resource will continue to facilitate high-resolution monitoring of glaciers until at least 2032.

Howat emphasized the importance of the ArcticDEM project, adding, “The ArcticDEM project will continue to provide high-resolution Digital Elevation Models until at least 2032. This will allow us to monitor glaciers in Greenland and across the wider Arctic as they continue to respond to climate change in regions experiencing faster rates of warming than anywhere else on Earth.”

This research underscores the significant impact of climate change on the Greenland Ice Sheet, necessitating updates to current predictive models concerning sea level rise.