NEW YORK: The sheet of ice that covers Greenland is melting faster than ever before now and the pace is increasing every year, according to data provided by satellites that study the impact of warming on the northern island.
One of the immediate visible results is the rise in sea levels around the world and the increasing rate at which this is happening, according to scientists who have been following the phenomenon.
According to a study by University of Texas scientists Jianli Chen, Byron Tapley and Clark Wilson, published in the on-line edition of the journal Science, the ice layer on Greenland is melting at a rate three times faster than it was five years ago. The team has based its finding on the melting trend on observations for over a decade while monitoring a satellite mission that measures changes in the earth's gravity over Greenland as the ice layer there melts and the water flows into the Arctic ocean.
Chen said the team has been watching the melting during a relatively short period, but it has provided the strongest evidence of it and in the near future the pace of melting will accelerate even more.
Another team of scientists, studying the trend of melting ice in Antarctica, based on data provided by the same satellites, said the Antarctican melting too is leading to the rise in sea level.
According to scientists, Greenland is the largest reservoir of fresh water on earth next to Antarctica and it holds about 10 per cent of the world's supply. The increasing flow of fresh water from the melting glaciers on Greenland's eastern coast has already started changing the composition of oceanic currents flowing in Northwestern Europe.
The scientists fear this change in the composition of the ocean currents could lead to colder climates in Northern Europe, at least temporarily, while the rest of the globe will be warming.
The scientists said surface melting of Greenland's ice cover had reached 57 cubic miles a year between April 2002 and November 2005, compared to about 19 cubic miles a year between 1997 and 2003.
Hypothetically, if the Greenland ice cover melts down completely -- which is unlikely to happen -- the world's sea level would rise by an average of 6.5 meters, or about 21 feet, which is more than sufficient to down all the world's low-lying islands and even countries like Holland.
Chen and his team say the melting of Greenland's ice cover is already raising global sea levels by six-tenths of a millimeter each year, while the scientists who studied the Antarctic ice melting say it is adding up to four-tenths of a millimeter of fresh water to sea levels each year.
