Greenland’s polar bears are learning to get around in a less icy world“We’re discovering the ice sheet is much more sensitive to climate change than we previously thought,” study co-author and Utah State University geoscientist Tammy Rittenourcovers about 80 percent of the 836,3000-square-mile land mass,
and this new analysis overturns some previous assumptions that the majority of the glacier has been frozen for millions of years. A less icy and greener Greenland indicates that the ice sheet is not necessarily as stable as it appears. “We had always assumed the ice sheet has remained about the same for nearly 2.5 million years,” said Rittenour. “But our investigation indicates it melted enough to allow the growth of moss, shrubs and buzzing insects during an interglacial period called Marine Isotope Stage 11, between 424,000 to 374,000 years ago.”worldwide. Some of the models in the study suggest that sea levels could have been up to 30 feet higher than we see today.