Please login or sign up to post and edit reviews.
The climate clues buried under Greenland’s ice sheet
Podcast |
Post Reports
Publisher |
The Washington Post
Media Type |
audio
Podknife tags |
News & Politics
Categories Via RSS |
Daily News
News
Politics
Publication Date |
Dec 14, 2023
Episode Duration |
00:21:41

Scientists came to Greenland on an unprecedented mission to drill for rocks that would reveal the fate of the country’s fast-melting ice sheet. A sudden crack in the ice threatened their experiment. 

Read more:

The Greenland Ice Sheet contributes more to sea level rise than any other ice mass. If it disappeared, it would raise global sea levels by 24 feet, devastating coastlines home to about half the world’s population. Computer simulations and modern observations alone can’t precisely predict how Greenland might melt. 

Greenland’s bedrock holds clues. It was present the last time the ice sheet melted completely and contains chemical signatures of how that melt unfolded. It could help scientists predict how drastically Greenland might change in the face of today’s rising temperatures. 

But scientists have less material from under the ice sheet than they do from the surface of the moon. So this spring, a team from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory made an unprecedented effort to drill through more than 1,600 feet of ice and uncover the bedrock below.

Climate reporter Sarah Kaplan was there too. She arrived just after a thin crack appeared in the ice around the drill, threatening the project and its ability to unearth the future.

Scientists came to Greenland on an unprecedented mission to drill for rocks that would reveal the fate of the country’s fast-melting ice sheet. A sudden crack in the ice threatened their experiment.

This episode currently has no reviews.

Submit Review
This episode could use a review!

This episode could use a review! Have anything to say about it? Share your thoughts using the button below.

Submit Review