A recent study has revealed that Greenland’s ice is much more fragile than previously thought in the face of climate change. Less than a million years ago, a non-extreme rise in temperatures caused not only the edges of the ice sheet but also the core to melt, allowing a tundra ecosystem to develop.
Discovering traces of a green past
Direct evidence of such a green ecosystem comes from the discovery of seeds, twigs, and insect fragments in an ice core taken more than thirty years ago. This core, preserved at the National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility in Lakewood, Colorado, was re-examined by a team of researchers from the University of Vermont. The results, published in the journal of the American Academy of Sciences Pnasindicate that Greenland was not always an impenetrable expanse of ice, but had periods when the climate was warm enough to allow plants to grow and insects to thrive.
Future of the Ice Cap
This discovery has important implications for our understanding of climate change and its consequences. Richard Alley, a climatologist at the Pennsylvania State Universitystressed that the findings represent a significant warning about the potential damage that could occur if global warming continues. Indeed, Greenland, which has long been seen as an ice “fortress,” is proving to be much more vulnerable.
Already in 2016, a study conducted by the Columbia University on a three-kilometer-long ice core (Gisp2), taken in 1993, had indicated that the current ice sheet cannot be older than 1.1 million years. Then, in 2019, the research team from the University of Vermont found additional evidence of ice melt in a core taken in the 1960s near the coast, dating back no more than 416,000 years.
Conclusions
New analyses of the Gisp2 core clearly show that the ice sheet has melted into the center of the ice sheet, revealing an ecosystem that included plants such as ferns and willows, as well as insects. This finding suggests that Greenland’s ice sheet may be responding more rapidly and dramatically to global warming than previously thought, raising concerns about the ice sheet’s future in a warming world.
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