The Dynamics Deep Within the Greenland Ice Sheet

Runoff from Icecap

This fabulous video presents the melting of the Arctic sea ice in a totally accessible way, while maintaining enough scientific rigor to leave no doubt as to its validity.

Coincidentally, I had the pleasure of sitting next to someone at a dinner party a few years from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory whose entire career is built around leading a team that launches and monitors satellites to provide information on the thickness and health of the Greenland ice sheet.  Here’s what he told me:

Measuring the changing (generally shrinking) area of the ice sheet requires technology we’ve had for half a century.  But keep in mind that, before it started to melt, that ice was two miles thick in parts.  Far more important than the dwindling area of the surface is what’s happening in its interior.  As the surface ice melts, it heads down through crevasses that are thousands of feet deep.  Where does it go eventually?  What effects does it cause along the way?

When he was finished, I said, “You know, there are people who say that climate change is a hoax.  What do you have to say to them?”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said sadly.