Greenland: Ice Cap Melting Faster

11 August 2006The New York Times

Greenland’s vast ice cap, which has had expanding melting zones in recent summers, is losing far more water to the sea than it is gaining through snowfall, and is thus contributing to rising sea levels, a research team said. Writing in the journal Science, the scientists, from the University of Texas in Austin, said gravity-measuring satellites showed that 57 cubic miles of ice was being lost annually. Some glaciologists criticized facets of the analysis but said that the study and several different measurement methods confirmed the overall trend. Eric Rignot, a NASA glaciologist, said most experts now agreed that the recent warming of Greenland and the accelerated melting of its glaciers are a “warming that shows no indication of a slowdown.”