Although a new study of the mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet shows that previous research underestimated its ice loss by about 20 percent, which could lead to unexpected increases in sea level rise, it also held good news about the technological advancements used to make such measurements.
The study, published last month in the journal Nature, effectively captures ice loss at the edges of glaciers where they meet the sea. The researchers manually recorded changes at the edges of the ice and also trained algorithms to track melting along the border where the glacier meets the sea.
Previous research focused primarily on capturing melting within a fixed ice mask, an established perimeter, of the ice sheet, which often missed the notable impacts of calving ice breaking off from the edges of the ice sheet. The new research indicates that 1,000 gigatons of ice went unaccounted for in previous estimates.
Since the lowest edges of the ice sheet sit submerged in the water, the previously unnoticed ice loss didn’t directly affect sea level rise. However, the thinning of the ice sheet could accelerate further melting and allow ice currently sitting on land to slide into the water to raise sea levels.