(Image source: AGU)

A new study produced by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) has found that the Greenland Ice Sheet is softening up faster than expected. The study shows that surface melt water absorbs heat and sunlight then transfers that energy into the heart of Greenland’s ice sheets resulting in sagging and more rapid movement, not just at ice sheet edges, but deep within interior glaciers.

Over the past decade, researchers found that the speed of ice motion at the edge of Greenland’s vast ice sheets had increased resulting in larger flows into the ocean. Now, ice motion deep within Greenland’s interior is also found to have sped up. The study compared the rates of ice flow during 2000 to 2001 with a period from 2005 to 2008. The results were alarming:

“Through satellite observations, we determined that an inland region of the Sermeq Avannarleq Glacier, 40 to 60…