Another causation theory for the melting of Greenland's ice sheet might have been ascertained by a new study carried out by a team of researchers from Denmark and Canada's York University.
Over and beyond the blazing rays of the sun, warm and moist air might also be immensely responsible for the melting of the ice sheet.
There were two major ice melts that occurred in 2012, according to the study. One took place from July 8 to July 11, and the other happened later that very month, from July 27 to July 28.
Based on the automatic weather station data from the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE) and observations made, during these specific melt incidents, unusual amounts of warm and moist air impacted the surfaces of the ice sheet.
By analyzing data from 12 different sites, researchers evaluated the varied energy sources responsible for the exceptional ice melt rates that occurred in 2012. They particularly found that the energy originating from warm air containing moisture content, not the sun's own radiant energy, could be held more accountable for the drastic ice melts.
Incredibly, the melt that happened during those six days in July alone accounted for 14 percent of the overall melt that happened during the melting season. The record-high melt rate of 28 centimeters (11 inches) per day was observed during this period.
Analysis of the data helped researchers arrive at the supposition that warm and moist air might be one of the key contributing forces toward the causation of the ice melts.
"Glaciological instrumentation capable of automatically recording the daily rate of melting in exceptional melt circumstances, where the ice surface lowers by close to 10 [meters] [approximately 33 feet] in a few months, has only emerged in the last decade or so, thanks to PROMICE," said study co-author William Colgan of the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University. "The detail of PROMICE observations is permitting new insights on brief, but consequential, exceptional melt events."
PROMICE was initiated in 2007 by the Danish Energy Agency's Danish Cooperation for Environment in the Arctic (DANCEA) program as an ongoing effort to assess changes in the Greenland ice sheet. The PROMICE automatic weather station data was used to estimate the varied impacts energy origination from the sun and atmosphere had on the ice melts.
Greenland is the world's largest island and is host to the second largest ice mass on the planet, which covers a whopping 82 percent of the island.
The details of the study have been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Photo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center | Flickr
