The south of Greenland viewed from the International Space Station Greenland has gone through an “unprecedented” period of ice loss within the last two decades. The Grace satellites revealed a four-fold increase in mass being lost from Greenland’s ice sheet from 2003-2013. The study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that ice loss subsequently stalled for 12-18 months. The research reveals how different areas of Greenland might contribute to sea-level rise in future. What did the study look at? Scientists concerned about sea levels have long focused on Greenland’s south-east and north-west regions, where glaciers continually force large chunks of ice into the Atlantic Ocean. But the largest sustained acceleration in ice loss from early 2003 to mid-2013 occurred in south-west Greenland, which is largely devoid of these large glaciers. “Whatever this was, it couldn’t be explained by glaciers, because there aren’t many there,” said the […]