26 may 2011
Greenland ice loss can fill world’s 11th largest lake
Washington: Two of the three largest glaciers draining a frozen Greenland have lost so much ice that, if melted, could have filled Lake Erie, the world’s 11th largest lake, researchers say.
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Bounded by the US and Canada, Lake Erie is spread over 25,745 square km, and has a length of 388 km and breadth of 92 km at its widest points, with an average depth of 62 feet.
Greenland, as the second largest holder of ice on the planet, and the site of hundreds of glaciers, is a natural lab for studying how climate change has affected these ice fields.
The three glaciers – Helheim, Kangerdlugssuaq and Jakobshavn Isbrae – are responsible for as much as one-fifth of the ice flowing out from Greenland into the ocean, reports the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“Jakobshavn alone drains somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of all the ice flowing outward from inland to the sea,” explained Ian Howat, assistant professor of earth sciences at the Ohio State University.
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