Ice sheets can collapse at 600 metres a day, far faster than feared, study finds

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/05/ice-sheets-collapse-far-faster-than-feared-study-climate-crisis

By Damian Carrington, The Guardian. 

Excerpt: Ice sheets can collapse into the ocean in spurts of up to 600 metres (2,000 feet) a day, a study has found, far faster than recorded before. ...the finding, based on sea floor sediment formations from the last ice age, was a “warning from the past” for today’s world in which the climate crisis is eroding ice sheets. ...The research, published in the journal Nature, used high-resolution mapping of the sea bed off Norway, where large ice sheets collapsed into the sea at the end of the last ice age 20,000 years ago. The scientists focused on sets of small ridges parallel to the coast, which formed at the line where the base of the ice sheet met the oceans, called the grounding line. ...Measuring the distance between the ridges enabled the scientists to calculate the speed of the Norwegian ice sheet collapse. They found speeds of between 50 metres a day and 600 metres a day. That is up to 20 times faster than the speediest retreat recorded previously by satellites, of 30 metres a day at the Pope Glacier in West Antarctica....

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