Talk:Greenland ice sheet

To Do

• history and age of the ice sheet (110,000 year old ice vs. reports of millions of year old ice cap?)
• fix exact percentage of Greenland's area covered by the ice cap (estimates range from 79 to 85%)
• some nice images, preferably of ice melt, or mass balance (see for example [1])
• adding a bit more on mass balance, precipitation, processes.

Jens Nielsen 18:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

• Add information from here (greenland ice melt ~154 Gt/y) : http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/ICE_GRACE_ams_briefing.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.216.199.26 (talk) 11:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

loosing mass = melting? in year 2007?

"It was estimated that in the year 2007 Greenland ice sheet lost 592 km3 of its mass. [11]" Actually the source says that greenland MELT during the SUMMER that amount. It also gained mass by snowfalls etc. According to the source, net lost was only 65 km3. However, I guess that only counts the melt/snowfall, but not icebergs etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.216.199.26 (talk) 20:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The statement "If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt away completely, the world's sea level would rise by more than 7 m (23 ft).[41]" is inaccurate. The article states the volume of the ice is "approximately 2,850,000 km3". The article entitled "Oceans" states that the surface area of the oceans of the planet is approximately "3.6×10(8) km2". Divide the volume by the area results in an increased depth of .77cm, not the 7m stated in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Really Just Al (talk • contribs) 23:27, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

2,850,000 cubic kilometres spread over 360,000,000 square kilometres gives a height of 7.92 metres. I'm guessing you did the calculation by dividing the two, then assumed a height of 1 metre rather than a kilometre. Easy mistake to make, but you really should check more carefully when criticising other people's arithmetic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greylib (talk • contribs) 10:36, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Post-melting archipelago ?

• "If the ice would disappear, Greenland would most probably appear as an archipelago."

This is somehow misleading, without taking into account the Post-glacial rebound. The melting of such a mass of ice will certainly been followed by isostatic ajustment, like currently in Scandinavia. universimmedia 22:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The melting ice sheet

• "According to the study, in 1996 Greenland was losing about 96 km3 per year in mass from its ice sheet."

I hope I'm not just being anal, but isn't it incorrect to say "in mass" there, since km3 is a measure of volume?

~Murftown, 21 July 06

Time frame of the melting ?

I know scientists are very careful not to say anything about this, but what are the estimates of the time Greenland Ice Sheet takes to melt ? 1500 years (as in the end of the last ice age) - 150 years (as there's ~10 times less ice than in the last ice age)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.153.60.138 (talk) 07:23, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

- Quick answer: We don't know. Between 50 and 1500 years.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.86.252.131 (talk) 10:21, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Great example of scientific innumeracy from questioner and answerer. Time frame = amount of ice/loss rate = 3 million / 200 = 15,000 years roughly. Of course this calculation is not done in the article because the answer is not sufficiently alarming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.243.220.42 (talk) 15:04, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

It's actually more complicated than that. There can be strongly non-linear effects, such as pools of water forming that absorb sunlight much more efficiently than ice, and liquid water build-up below the ice that carries large blocks out into the sea. But even without such effects the ice-loss rate is going to change significantly due to climate change. It could increase (due to higher temperatures) or decrease (due to increased precipitation at high altitude). The most pessimistic scenario in the IPCC graph shown in the article has most of the ice gone by the year 3000. (The graph shows a 600 cm sea level rise, and a 720 cm rise would correspond to all of the ice sheet.) --PeR 19:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Side-effects of ponding were important with the Larsen Ice Shelf collapse. While that was over sea, the role of ponding is somewhat measured in the Greenland ice sheet -

• Surface Melt-Induced Acceleration of Greenland Ice-Sheet Flow Originally published in Science Express on 6 June 2002, Science 12 July 2002: Vol. 297. no. 5579, pp. 218 - 222 "The near coincidence of the ice acceleration with the duration of surface melting, followed by deceleration after the melting ceases... provides a mechanism for rapid, large-scale, dynamic responses of ice sheets to climate warming."
• Evolution of melt pond volume on the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L03501, "estimating the depth and hence volume of surface melt ponds... show large intra- and interannual changes in ponded water volumes, and large volumes of liquid water stored in extensive slush zones."

Then add the tracking of accumulated changes by ponding causing accelerated change in the ice sheet in the earthquake record ....

• Global warming yields 'glacial earthquakes' in polar areas "Glacial earthquakes in Greenland, the researchers found, are most common in July and August, and have more than doubled in number since 2002." -
• Glacial earthquakes rock Greenland ice sheet 12:36 24 March 2006, NewScientist.com news service " quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005."

Another dynamic of melting ice happens with such events as the Missoula Floods.--Smkolins (talk) 01:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Allow the rate of increase in global warming increases at an increasing rate with periodic discordant surges as the tipping points tip, three earth atmospheres of methane get released, the sea ice melts affecting the albedo, human population doubles by the end of the century doubling the anthropogenic effects, eventually the result is the sixth global extinction event, but factor in also the SLR from West Antarctica and now the Totten glacier in East Antarctica. Add to that the shift from el Nino to La Nina acts to put more heat in the atmosphere than in the oceans where it has been being stored then model that either as doubling or the Fibonacci series and it gets interesting. Using the Rules of 72, 70, or 69 you just divide the rate into the rule to get the doubling time. With the rule of seventy and a rate of one percent the melting rate takes 70 years to double. Suppose the rate increases at an increasing rate as the Fibonacci series 1,1,2,3,5,8... much like what we observe with temperature and sea level rise, we might see Greenland melt in a couple of centuries rather than taking three milenia.142.0.102.164 (talk) 16:53, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Sentence needs reconsideration

"Because the overwhelming majority of humans in the world live near the water, it would inundated almost every major coastal city in the world, absent heroic mitigation." does not make sense. 1) IF TRUE? then regardless of the number of people living near water, it would still inundate (not -inundated) almost every major coastal city in the world. 2) also "absent heroic mitigation" does not reflect any fact, and thus does not belong in an encyclopedia. My suggestion is: 1) delete it altogether, or 2) change it to: "This would inundate most coastal cities in the world and remove several small island countries from the face of Earth." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.106.210.234 (talk • contribs)

I've noticed that too... I've followed your suggestion. --Bletch 14:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Mass loss is more due to flow of ice though outlet glaciers than melting

It's worthy of note that the mass loss is due more to the ice flow in the outlet glaciers than to melting on the ice sheet (at least since 1996). [2] Should the section on melting be rewritten to reflect this? 71.32.19.55 (talk) 01:31, 25 May 2008 (UTC) I do not see a mistake in the increased melting section, but you are correct and so I added a section on the mechanism and examples of glacier acceleration which demonstrate that it is a change at the calving front that is driving the acceleration not enhanced meltwater production.Peltoms (talk) 16:29, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Where's the crack??

This news story...

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-greenland23-2008aug23,0,750881.story

...claims Petermann Glacier has a huge crack, and is about to calve a mega-iceberg.

Could someone who knows anything about the situation Wikify Petermann Glacier, then, maybe, point to the crack on those satellite photos? They all look like a bunch of ice to us civilians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.171.42 (talk) 20:47, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Certainly some cracking. Here is the Google maps sat picture... https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greenland/@80.3531993,-56.254893,277041m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x4ea20dbbe3c07715:0x34cf9d830114e218!8m2!3d71.706936!4d-42.604303 Tatlayoko (talk) 21:24, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

"1700.000 km²"

• http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grönländischer_Eisschild#Einzelnachweise

Also der Wikipedia Artikel beruht auf Quellen des IPCC. Die Groesse des Eisschildes Greenlandes wird mit 1.700.000 Quadratkilometer angeben. Haben die beim IPCC einen Erdglobus? Bei dem koennen sie das Gradssytem der Nordhalbkugel sehr gut betrachten, dieses unterteilt die Nordhalbkugel in 90 Kreise. Davon umfasst der Nordpol mit 90 Grad und 360 Graden eine Flaeche von Null Quadratmetern. Und nun behaupten die Referenzquellen auf die Kreisflaechen zwischen dem 83 Grad und dem 63 Grad bzw. dem 20 bis 60 Grad (Hauptflaeche liegt zwischen dem 30 und 50 Grad) soll eine Flaeche von 1.700.000.000 Quadratmetern passen. Ohne das genau auszurechnen, schaetze ich mal, dass es als Mathematiker und Geograph unmoeglich ist, bei diesen Gradzahlen des Erdglobuses von Groenland eine Flaeche 1.700.000.000 Quadratmeter Eisschild unterzubringen, rein mathematisch (Kreisflaechenberechnung Kugelberechung) und geographisch unmoeglich ist (koennen sie auch mit einem Zirkel nachpruefen). Ich schaetze das Eisschild von Greenland hat auf Grund von Mathematischen und Geographischen Gegebenheiten eine moegliche Groesse von 170 Millionen bis 350 Millionen Quadratmetern. Das gleiche gilt wahrscheinlich auch genauso fuer das Antarktische Eisschild, dass im Greenland Eisschild Artikel Wikipedia erwaehnt wird (Link).

Nehmen Sie mal ein A1 Blatt Papier. Zeichnen Sie mit einem Zirkel da einen Kreis von 90 Zentimeter. Der Mittelpunkt davon ist (Erdglobus) der Nordpol. Nun zeichne sie weitere 89 Kreise auf das Blatt Papier. Nun makieren sie die Koordinaten von Greenland und des Greenland Eisschilds. Als naechstes berechnen sie fuer jeden der 90 Kreise den Radius, den Durchmesser, den Kreisumfang, die Kreisflaeche (Erdenordhalbkugel in 90 Scheiben geschnitten). Das schwierigste ist nun die Flaechen zwischen zwei Kreisumfaengen zu berechnen. Als letztes muessen sie nun die Daten des groessten Kreisumfanges in die Zeichnung einrechnen, unzwar die des 40.085 Kilometer langen Aequators (90:40.085).

In der gleichen Weise koennen sie mit einem Zirkel auch die Flaeche der Antarktis und des Antartischen Eisschildes zeichnen und berechnen.

• http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarktischer_Eisschild

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82.109.84.114 (talk) 14:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Shamefully biased global-warming threats

Is Al Gore writing this article? The IPCC? Greenpeace? It is so blatantly biased that its global-warming fear mongering shouts out from every corner. Are we supposed to get objective data and facts or is this a cry to stop the alleged "global warming?" Can we stop reading about this "if all the ice of Greenland were to melt" warning at every opportunity (even when it is entirely out of context)? I am not even going to try to fix anything here, since it is painfully obvious that the global warming tzars will immediately undo any such edits. Deep Guy (talk) 14:20, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

If you have substantive factual reasons which you can cite references for, name them and that can be worked on. It's not helpful to come at it from a "I know global warming isn't serious, so if this article cites facts that sound serious, it MUST be biased" which is the essence of your sarcastic comments about Al Gore and the other comments. So try researching science rather than reading skeptic blogs; while you research for actual scientific literature, you may find some shocking, shocking revelations, like the fact that the greenhouse warming effects of CO2 were studied before Gore ever came on the national scene, in fact before he was ever born.[3] is one place to start.

Now you'll have to excuse me..because I could post "shamefully biased in favor of 'skeptics' this article is" but instead, I will do something more constructive, which is to point out specific factual issues, with the "11,900" figure in the article.Harel (talk) 17:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree, increased temperature means increased rain and snowfall, by 10% per degree C (50 Gtons/year ?). Not a mention of that here though because it would be against the agenda. God forbid what would happen if the Gulf stream also stopped, and "they" are predicting that too, you can't have both. Djp~enwiki (talk) 20:33, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

"11,900 years"

The statement had been that "at this rate, it would melt in 11,900" years and had cited a 2001 report by IPCC. Since this report is not the msot recent, I had earlier today updated the sentence to "At this rate of ice loss the IPCC estimated in 2001 that Greenland ice sheet would melt in 11,900 years" However there are several additional problems:

• 1. The previous sentence was about 2006 estimates (loss of 239 km^3/yr). It thus makes no sense to start this sentence with "at this rate..." and then cite a 2001 IPCC report which would obviously not have used the 2006 estimate. At best the sentence should be, "using similar estimates back in 2001..."

• 2. A bigger problem that no direct reference to "11,900 years" or to the year 13,900A.D. is in the reference cited

• 3. he biggest problem comes from a misleading and scientifically inaccurate interpretation of the annual melt as a percent of total mass. One of the numbers in the reference may have been used by the editor who put in the "11,900" years, though it's not clearly stated. This, in any event, is scientifically inaccurate, namely there is no prediction for melting to take 11,900 years. The melt rates are not predicted to be linear, or in more basic terms, they are not predicted to continue at a constant rate. Thus "11,900 years" even if it were citing a reference which gave something like "annual melt is equal to 0.007% or 0.008% of the total mass" (an annual melt which, if kept constant would cause 11,900 or so years to be 'how long total melt would take') it would still be inaccurate and misleading since there is no scientific prediction of the melt rate being constant. Quite to the contrary, it is expected to be highly nonlinear. Not only that, it's not only expectations but the data show more recent melt rates to be much higher than those only 10 or so years earlier.

For all these reasons and especially the third, I've removed this sentence. (The 2001 reference (currently ref [2] in the article) is still there and is cited in other parts of the article. For useful background on point 3. see [4] foremost; also [5]) Harel (talk) 19:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Northern Ice Cap is only a recent occurrance in geological time.

The Al Gore, and the other Climate Change is all America's fault forget to mention that millions of years ago when there was no connection between South America, and Central/North America. The Panama Gap was wide open for any ship or whale to pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific, there was no northern ice pack at all. The climate was very warm. I am unsure what prehistoric automobile company was to blame. The fact is the climate would change on earth regardless of what creature is at the top of the food chain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.248.200.121 (talk) 21:49, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Using "Al Gore" in any comment on this page is an excellent way to get precisely nobody to take it seriously. If you find specific inaccuracies in the article, please post them along with verifiable sources to back up your claims. Otherwise, Wikipedia Is Not A Discussion Forum. Matteric (talk) 23:03, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

why there is ice sheet on greenland while not near it?

why there is ice sheet on greenland while not near it in canada and not in similar places in siberia? i have found this: http://200.ksu.ru/index.php?sci_news=451 , http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/uob-wig082608.php . so, it is unknown by modern science. --Qdinar (talk) 06:30, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

One can't make this conclusion "unknown by modern science" from just two reports. As a Wikipedia editor: if these two sources meet WP:RS, they could be used to add balance and an WP:NPOV to the article. Lentower (talk) 07:37, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

The reason why Greenland has ice and Canada does not is precipitation. The Canadian arctic is EXTREMELY dry compared to Greenland.Tatlayoko (talk) 21:28, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Actually neither article contains any significant discussion about the question "ice sheet on greenland while not near it in canada." Both articles are concerned with the question about what caused the drop in CO2 concentration and the formation of the Greenland Ice Sheet in the Late Pliocene. The Eureka Alert press release, "Why is Greenland covered in ice?" lacks any discussion of "why there is ice sheet on greenland while not near it in canada and not in similar places in siberia." It only discusses the idea that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide can "explain the transition from the mostly ice-free Greenland of three million years ago, to the ice-covered Greenland." Both press release and the August 28, 2008 Nature paper ("Late Pliocene Greenland glaciation controlled by a decline in atmospheric CO2 levels" by Daniel J. Lunt, Gavin L. Foster, and others), which it discusses, neither mentions anything about Qdinar's question nor states anything about the location of the current Greenland Ice Sheet being a mystery. Thus, it is completely incorrect to claim that either the press release or the Nature paper can be used to support the "unknown by modern science" conclusion. In the Russian article, the reference to the question about why the ice sheet now covers Greenland and not Canada and Siberia is a single sentence that asks,

Clarify why Greenland is covered with ice, while the respective territories of Canada and Siberia in the summer is completely free of snow, it is, however, also can not be.

The Russian article completely lacks any significant discussion of why its author believes this is a mystery. As it is written, this sentence is only a personal opinion that lacks any scientific arguments to back it up and, as a result, fails the WP:RS criteria. Given the lack of any scientific justification for this opinion in this article, it is useless as any unsubstantiated and undocumented opinion about any matter is for Wikipedia purposes. Besides, the fact of the matter is that continental ice sheets once covered Canada and Europe nearest Greenland during the Last Glacial Maximum. They melted before Greenland did as climate warmed from the Last Glacial Maximum because of meteorological and oceanographic factors, of which the author of Russian article apparently lacks any knowledge, that are well-documented in the scientific literature.Paul H. (talk) 14:36, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Northeastern anomaly

Some cursory searches didn't seem to find this in the article, so I'll note it here and more active participants can put it in the right place. One fun bit of trivia is that even when the glaciers covered most of Canada and the central United States they don't seem to have covered the northeast corner of Greenland (parts of the Northeast National Park). Rainfall and whatnot seem to have worked to keep the area a barren rocky desert regardless of how cold it got or how much ice ringed it. (Might bear some double checking, since is mid-20th century source; still, cool if true). — LlywelynII 13:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The article, which reference above is:

Flint, R. F., 1952, The Ice Age in the North American Arctic. ARCTIC. vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 135-152.

The figure on page 140, which shows the northern part of Greenland unglaciated, is from “’Textbook of Geology’ Part 1, by Longwell, Knopf, and Flint, published by John Wiley and Sons” according to caption. Although a date is not given for this textbook, the youngest edition of it, which I can find was published in 1947. Thus, the map is likely at least 65 years old. Unfortunately, without looking at this book, it is impossible to determine, on what data and interpretations that the “unglaciated” region in North Greenland is based upon. However, extremely little was known about the surface geology of North Greenland at that time and nothing was known about sediments lying beneath the Artic Ocean adjacent to it. Given this lack of data, the mapping shown in that figure is quite likely very speculative in nature. As far as Quaternary geology papers go, this is a rather "ancient" and somewhat obsolete paper, which has been superseded by more detailed research since it was published in 1952.

In the decades since the textbook and Flint’s paper was published, geophysical data and cores have been collected from the continental shelf underlying the Arctic Ocean adjacent to North Greenland. This information, along with studies of the rates at which North Greenland is uplifting due to isostatic rebound and its surface geology, all demonstrate that the Greenland ice sheet definitely covered all of North Greenland during the Last Glacial Maximum. Glacial sediments recovered in the offshore cores and geophysical data demonstrate that Greenland Ice Sheet also extended offshore onto the outer continental shelf, which would have been largely above sea level at that time, adjacent to North Greenland during the Last Glacial Maximum.

For a more current research, which is based upon an enormous amount of data collected in the decades since 1952, go read:

1. Norgaard-Pedersen, N., N. Mikkelsen, and Y. Kristoffersen, 2009, Late glacial and Holocene marine records from the Independence Fjord and Wandel Sea regions, North Greenland. Polar Research. vol. 27, pp. 209–221. and

2. Funder, S., K. Kjellerup, K. H. Kjær, and C. O Cofaigh, 2011, The Greenland ice sheet, the last 300,000 years: a review. In: J. Ehlers, P. Gibbard, and P. Hughes, eds., pp. 699-713, Quaternary Glaciations - Extent and Chronology. Part IV: A closer look. Developments in Quaternary Science no. 16. Elsevier, New York. Paul H. (talk) 02:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

July 2012 melt event

The section on surface melting only mentions data up to 2002. This needs to be updated with considerations of more recent events, notably, the period in mid-July 2012 where something like 97% of the surface area of the ice sheet experienced melting. EthicsEdinburgh (talk) 21:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

rate of melt increasing at an increasing rate

If the temperature is projected to increase to where tipping points such as methane releases occur generating feedback loops where the melting occurs faster, and scientists already observe the rate of melting is showing surprising acceleration, won't the thousands of years presently projected for the ice caps to melt completely be reduced as substantially as the warming is increased? On other words, is it correct that if the rate of warming is doubled the time of melting would be halved, and if multiplied by a factor of ten the same? 12.187.94.154 (talk) 17:18, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

NYT (1988-08-04) - World War II Planes Found in Greenland In Ice 260 Feet Deep (80m)

How can the planes from WW2 be buried under 80m of ice ? more than 1.7 m each year (47 years) against the model. I've read that the corpses of vikings were unburied there some years ago. How could it be named GREENland instead of Whiteland or Frostland? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.181.138.162 (talk) 04:43, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

First, the World War II aircraft that you ask about is known as the "Lost Squadron." It consists of six Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters and two Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers that made a forced landing on the Greenland Ice Sheet. One of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters was recovered and restored as the "Glacier Girl." They crashed about ten miles from the edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet in southeast Greenland, 65°13'44"N 40°14'54"W. Being so close to the southeast coast of Greenland and the edge of its ice sheet, the rate of snow accumulation at this location is unusually high, at more than 2 m per year. Further inland from coast and to the north, the rates of snow accumulation drop drastically and are quite low within its interior.

Second, I have not found anything about the remains of Vikings. However, Greenland is a large landmass and the accumulation rates of snow vary very drastically within it depending on what part of it a person is looking at. The rate of snow accumulation for one part of Greenland clearly does not apply to another part of it.

Finally, tradition has it that Greenland's name was a marketing device by Eric the Red to encourage people to settle it. "Greenland" is far more appealing and encouraging name for attracting settlers instead of "Whiteland" or "Frostland." Paul H. (talk) 13:08, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Increase in mean sea level

It is currently stated that the melting of the ice sheet would result in a 7.2 metre rise in sea level. However an article in Nature implies up to a 13 metre rise, to quote: "global mean sea level 6 to 13  metres above the present level around 410,000 to 400,000 years ago, implying substantial mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet". http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v510/n7506/full/nature13456.htmlRoyalcourtier (talk) 19:43, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The 7 m figure is the most common estimate, the study you cite is from 2014 which might suggest that the figure needs to be revised upwards. Maybe if we get another recent study with a similar estimate we change the article? Or we could add a mention that a study from 2014 estimates up to 13 m.prokaryotes (talk) 08:57, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

The ice sheet, consisting of layers of compressed snow from more than 100,000 years, contains in its ice today's most valuable record of past climates.

Claiming that it is the most valuable record is quite presumptive. What about the Antarctic ice cores that go back further in time are they not more valuable since they hold more information?

Haloway13 (talk) 20:51, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Extraordinary claim?

The ice sheet, consisting of layers of compressed snow from more than 100,000 years, contains in its ice today's most valuable record of past climates.

Claiming that it is the most valuable record is quite presumptive. What about the Antarctic ice cores that go back further in time are they not more valuable since they hold more information?

Haloway13 (talk) 20:52, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

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Hyperfocus on global warming?

This article seems extremely lacking in information on the actual ice sheet itself, seemingly like a lot of others. Compare to Ross Ice Shelf for a more relevant article on a similar feature. Has anyone considered reworking this to be more about the ice sheet itself and less about climate change? 156.57.210.83 (talk) 17:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

What do you think is missing about the ice sheet itself (and which does not involve our climate)? prokaryotes (talk) 18:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

exploration.... NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:56, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Something about its influence on culture, history, settlement, and politics... coordinate that with text at Greenland NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:59, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I am looking for informations about the seasonal changing, but there are the datas for this topic? --Fmrauch (talk) 12:05, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Latest research as of 2018-12-05 needs to be incorporated

Nonlinear rise in Greenland runoff in response to post-industrial Arctic warming Science News summary A new method for observationally determining past melt rates is developed and pre-industrial rates are compared to the present day. Rates are increasing and will continue to increase with further warming. From the abstract

"continuous, multi-century and observationally constrained record of GrIS surface melt intensity and runoff, revealing that the magnitude of recent GrIS melting is exceptional over at least the last 350 years" ... and ... "We find that the initiation of increases in GrIS melting closely follow the onset of industrial-era Arctic warming in the mid-1800s, but that the magnitude of GrIS melting has only recently emerged beyond the range of natural variability. Owing to a nonlinear response of surface melting to increasing summer air temperatures, continued atmospheric warming will lead to rapid increases in GrIS runoff and sea-level contributions."

The nonlinearity of melt response is key and it helps to address questions below about time to melt the ice sheet and so on. Ecwiebe (talk) 17:28, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Danish word for the ice cap

The article says "Indlandsis" is the Danish term for the ice cap, but in Danish, we actually say "Indlandsisen". The last -en is the definitive article. We use the definitive, because Indlandsisen only refers to the Greenland Ice Cap. 77.233.228.141 (talk) 09:02, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

More recent information from RS

Reworking this big article is a big project, but for anybody who wants to dig in, I found some good recent RS. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:25, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

References

Improvements in December 2023

Hi User:InformationToKnowledge thanks a lot for your massive improvements on this article! Awesome work. I came here because I was working on ice sheet where I am now going to add an excerpt of Greenland ice sheet (please take a look). Some comments / observations for this article in its current state:

• Could you please provide a quick overview on the main improvements you've done?
• Also please provide a list of remaining to-dos if someone had time. Perhaps you can highlight any shortcomings of this article that you are aware of. (perhaps some improvements in reading ease would be called for?)
• I noticed you tend to write very long paragraphs. I've broken some of them into two. I think it can scare layperson readers off to be confronted with long paragraphs. I'd suggest to aim for a paragraph length of 4-6 lines per paragraph (rule of thumb).

EMsmile (talk) 21:17, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, as you can see, I was still in the middle of preparing a series of large edits to this article at the time of your question.

Some of the main improvements:

• Finally wrote a proper explanation of how the ice sheet was even formed. The earlier version of this page confused orography changes 10 million years ago with the actual formation a lot later on.
• Added a lot of recent research about the various impacts of climate change on the ice sheet, including numerous aspects that were never covered in this article before (mercury pollution run-off, research on precipitation trends, meltwater plumes, relative sea level rise, etc.)
• Cleaned up, condensed or removed outdated, duplicative or unreliable older material to make space for the above. I.e. this article used to have two completely unreferenced paragraphs which turned out to be exact copies of text from Britannica without attribution.
• Uploaded 12 images specifically for this article, and also moved the actual map of the ice sheet from the Greenland page to serve as page image.

I do not really see much else to improve, and so I have chosen to nominate this article for GA.

I can see your point about paragraph size, but I would caution you to avoid breaking up their flow in process. I have had to rearrange some of your split paragraphs for this reason. At one point, you even broke up a paragraph in such a way that several sentences appeared unreferenced, because the reference moved to the start of the next paragraph. Please watch out for this in the future! InformationToKnowledge (talk) 19:47, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion for lead

Suggest some of the numbers be demoted to the body and a few sentences about “Description” and “Geophysical and biochemical role of Greenland's meltwater” added Chidgk1 (talk) 20:27, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Greenland ice sheet/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Amitchell125 (talk · contribs) 18:30, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Happy to review this interesting article. However, its large size might mean that the review process takes longer than is recommended (a couple of weeks from start to finish). I'll start adding comments as soon as I can. AM

Thank you, and fair enough! I have done a final pre-GA round of revision on the article, and it should now remain highly stable as you work through the review. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 15:34, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Review comments

Leads section / infobox

Greenland ice sheet
Grønlands indlandsis Sermersuaq
Type	Ice sheet
Coordinates	76°42′N 41°12′W
Area	1,710,000 km2 (660,000 sq mi)
Length	2,400 km (1,500 mi)
Width	1,100 km (680 mi)
Thickness	1.67 km (1.0 mi) (average), ~3.5 km (2.2 mi) (maximum)

• Any information in the lead/infobox also needs to be included in the main body of the article (e.g. the average thickness of the sheet). The citations in the lead/infobox can then be moved out and placed in the body. See WP:LEAD for more information.
• The cleanup tag ([clarification needed]) needs to be addressed.
• I would place the top image (Greenland ice sheet…) inside the infobox (as shown).
• The bottom image should not form part of the lead, as it shunts all the lower images away from their sections.
• There is no need for the coordinates to be included in the infobox as well as at the top of the article.
• (note to reviewer—the lead will need to be checked again once the other sections are reviewed, to check it is a proper summary of the article.)

See also

• Glaciation, Climate change in the Arctic; Sea level rise and Arctic sea ice decline are linked in the text and so should not be listed here.
• As the image does not relate the text, it should be taken.

References

There are no GA issues here, but most articles of this quality have full citations of a uniform standard. Some examples of issues:

• No publisher/author: Ref 1 (Britannica); Ref 44 (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment); Ref 185 ("The Arctic is warming…); Ref 120 ( "Arctic Report Card…); Ref 161 ( "Archived copy", which also needs a title).
• Some organisations are not consistently formatted, e.g. Ref 59 (Shukman) The BBC - should be ‘BBC News’ (linked).

External links

• Arctic Climate Impact Assessment – page not found.
• The Dartmouth College Library reports are both decades old—are they relevant here?
• The Greenland ice sheet does not appear anywhere in the third navigation box ("Climate change"), so the box should not be included in this article.

Duplicate links

• There are multiple duplicate links,which need to be removed. See MOS:DUPLICATELINK for more guildance about these.

More comments to follow. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 08:13, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Failing the article

I have realised I need to quick fail the article.

Having started work on the sections, it has become apparent that the quality of the prose need a lot of attention. The comments below cover a couple of sections, after which I have stopped. The article needs to be copy edited throughout, and the text amended so that the article is more encyclopedic. The captions should not be so detailed that they cover material that is not included in the main text of the article, i.e. they need to be a lot shorter.

Further comments:

Description

• The link to Greenland needs to be moved to where it first appears.
• onto each other seems redundant.
• Once the ice sheet was formed in Greenland, its size had generally remained similar to its current state is too vague, as no specific size or state is given, and generally remained similar is almost meaningless.
• Why However?
• its current boundaries – there needs to an indication of what these are.
• the last one – it’s not clear what this is referring to.
• weight of causes – needs copy editing.
• Why is flow in quotation marks?
• many mountains – why many?
• normally prevent – why normally?
• Nowadays is a word to watch, and one I would avoid (see RELTIME).
• Nowadays, northwest and southeast of the ice sheet are the main areas where is clumsily written.
• a very long time is too vague.
• at Greenland – needs copy editing.

In geologic timescales

• Check the values are all converted (e.g. 2000 to 3000 meter), in this section and elsewhere.
• The Glaciologist at work image causes sandwiching, (MOS:SANDWICH) and being superfluous, should be removed.
• Similar sandwiching occurs in several places throughout he article. All such instances need to be dealt with (by removing images, trimming captions, moving images, or making multiple images).
• The sentence beginning While as recently as 3 million years ago… is far too long.
• Ditto However, there are parts of the Greenland ice sheet…
• warmer than preindustrial – needs copy editing.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Section headings

Hi User:Amitchell125, I saw your comment in the GA review about section headings: The captions should not be so detailed that they cover material that is not included in the main text of the article, i.e. they need to be a lot shorter.. I took a look but don't know which section headings you think should be shortened and how? None of them are overly long, given that they are not main level headings but sub-headings. EMsmile (talk) 19:13, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Copy editing (March 2024)

I responded to the request for a thorough copy edit (as part of the GOCE March drive), and have run through the whole article. A lot of work has gone into this article, and I was careful not to alter the sense of anything. I haven't added or removed any references (but someone might want to think about doing this another time). My copy editing focussed on clarity and readability: I shortened some sentences; removed quite a few 'however / notwithstanding' elements; tried to even out some of the over-bold statements, and to steer an easier path through some of the fact-rich sections. I tried to remove ambiguities where possible - but didn't always go back to the primary source to check statements of fact.

This is certainly a good quality article; my personal feeling is that in places there are still a few too many 'breaking news' sentences, highlighting a newly published study - but once these are a few years old, a reader might have a different perspective on the significance of the work (and might wish to de-emphasise, or tone down, the commentary).

Apologies if I have inadvertently mangled anything! Chaiten1 (talk) 15:16, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Chaiten1 Thank you very much for your careful improvements! I am glad that you agree this article is at good quality! And it is certainly true that some research is likely to be seen differently as the time goes on, but we cannot see the future, so I believe it is best to include all research with substantial implications for our understanding of the topic now, and then make edits with time as needed.

I'll certainly renominate this article again - the only question is whether I would want to first ensure cohesion with Geography of Greenland and Climate change in Greenland or not. Those two pages are very messy, but some material there may be of relevance to this article (and vice versa).

If you liked volunteering on this page, you might be interested to know that I have worked extensively on two more ice sheet articles (East Antarctic Ice Sheet and West Antarctic Ice Sheet) this year, and I plan to nominate both as well! I have just submitted a request for the former page, and I'll submit one for the latter once my other active request (already claimed by a volunteer, but not yet completed) is done. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:03, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Apparent contradiction regarding ice sheet history

Lede asserts "a single ice sheet first covered most of the island some 2.6 million years ago" and Description asserts "once the ice sheet formed in Greenland, its size remained similar to its current state" yet Geological history claims that there was at least one 90% melting during the last 1.4 million years. These claims are inconsistent.

Qemist (talk) 00:42, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Well spotted. Are you able to improve on this with the sources provided (or anyone else who has worked on this article before)? I am just watching the talk page out of general interest but have no deeper knowledge for this. EMsmile (talk) 11:37, 10 October 2024 (UTC)