Melting ice on Arctic islands a major player in sea level rise

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http://ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=8371

April 20, 2011

Melting ice on Arctic islands a major player in sea level rise

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Melting glaciers and ice caps on Canadian Arctic islands play a much greater role in sea level rise than scientists previously thought, according to a new study led by a University of Michigan researcher.

The 550,000-square-mile Canadian Arctic Archipelago contains some 30,000 islands. Between 2004 and 2009, the region lost the equivalent of three-quarters of the water in Lake Erie, the study found. Warmer-than-usual temperatures in those years caused a rapid increase in the melting of glacier ice and snow, said Alex Gardner, a research fellow in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences who led the project. The study is published online in Nature on April 20.

"This is a region that we previously didn't think was contributing much to sea level rise," Gardner said. "Now we realize that outside of Antarctica and Greenland, it was the largest contributor for the years 2007 through 2009. This area is highly sensitive and if temperatures continue to increase, we will see much more melting."

Ninety-nine percent of all the world's land ice is trapped in the massive ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. Despite their size, they currently only account for about half of the land-ice being lost to oceans. This is partly because they are cold enough that ice only melts at their edges.

The other half of the ice melt adding to sea-level rise comes from smaller mountain glaciers and ice caps such as those in the Canadian Arctic, Alaska, and Patagonia. This study underscores the importance of these many smaller, often overlooked regions, Gardner said.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10089