Not So Fast: Greenland Ice Melting, But Slower Than Thought

The Greenland ice sheet is rapidly wasting away—but not as quickly as some recent studies have found, according to a new analysis.

Several recent studies have suggested that the island has been losing ice at a rate sufficient to push global sea levels up by 0.02 inch (0.5 millimeter) a year.

The new analysis cuts that rate in half, but the ice-mass loss is still happening fast enough to alarm scientists.

Greenland is losing each year 20 percent more mass than goes into the ice sheet as snowfall, said Jay Zwally, a glacier expert at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Zwally is a co-author of the new study, which is reported tomorrow in the journal Science.