Greenland ice not melting as once thawed

The ice shelf of Greenland is melting in a binary fashion: on, off, on, off.

But melting, yes.

Northern ice study defies theories: Greenland survey shows runaway melt is unlikely

“It is too early to proclaim the ice sheet’s future doom” caused by climate change, lead author Kurt Kjaer of the University of Copenhagen wrote in a statement of the findings in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

An examination of old photos taken from planes revealed a sharp thinning of glaciers in northwest Greenland from 1985 to 1993, the experts in Denmark, Britain and the Netherlands wrote. Another pulse of ice loss in the area lasted from 2005 to 2010.

The discovery of fluctuations casts doubt on projections that Greenland could be headed for an unstoppable meltdown

“It starts and then it stops,” Kjaer told Reuters of the ice losses.

“This is a break from thinking that it is something that starts, accelerates and will consume Greenland all at once.”

However, Kjaer noted that the ice sheet did not get bigger in the pause between the pulses of ice loss.

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