Murky Waters: How Sediments Impact Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheets

Image caption: The sediment-rich meltwater river originating from Leverett Glacier in southwest Greenland, pictured in June 2012. Photo credit: Jon Hawkings Few consequences of global climate change are as notorious as melting ice sheets. However, the process responsible for this phenomenon is not as straightforward, or as well-understood, as might be imagined.  Ice sheets are masses of glacial ice that form over land, covering a minimum of 50,000 square kilometers (20,000 square miles) [1]. During Earth’s most recent ice ages, ice sheets stretching into the Arctic Ocean blanketed much of the northern regions of North America and Europe, while ...