Geophys. Res. Lett. 37, L06501 (2010)

Credit: © ISTOCKPHOTO / IGS942

The Greenland ice sheet has been rapidly losing mass in recent years, with glaciers spitting large chunks of ice out into the ocean. New research shows that, since 2005, this ice loss has spread from the south of Greenland all the way to the northwest coast.

A team of European and US researchers led by Shfaqat Abbas Khan of the National Space Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, used global positioning system (GPS) measurements and data from NASA's gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) satellites to observe changes in the mass of the Greenland ice sheet. The GPS measurements, taken at three bedrock sites near the ice sheet, were used to calculate 'crustal uplift' caused by ice mass loss along the coast. The GRACE satellites, which detect subtle shifts in the Earth's gravity field owing to changes in mass — including those from ice loss — can also be used to predict uplift, so the two data sets were comparable.

As well as detecting that ice loss is spreading northward, the researchers found a rapid acceleration of ice loss in southern Greenland in late 2003, followed by a slowdown in 2006. They note that, overall, the rate of ice loss in the region is much higher now than before 2003.