Part of the Greenland ice sheet may be close to a tipping point

Data from the Jakobshavn drainage basin of the Central-Western Greenland ice sheet reveals that the distinct mark of this part of the ice sheet has reached a tipping point. That is the conclusion by Niklas Boers from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany and Martin Rypdal from the Arctic University of Norway, after careful studies of the development in melt rates and ice-sheet height changes during the last 140 years. The two authors propose close monitoring of the Greenland ice sheet to assess the situation. The work, published in PNAS today, is part of the TiPES project, coordinated and led by the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.