New research from DTU Space shows that Greenland is undergoing a massive shift because of climate change—it’s quite literally accelerating the melting of the Danish territory.
A study recently published by DTU in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth outlined that Greenland is twisting, compressing, and stretching while drifting northwest by 2 centimeters a year, as per the report by Phys.
Ice sheets are melting, causing the tectonic plates to shift and setting Greenland adrift. According to researchers, Greenland is expanding and contracting at the same time, much like the rest of the universe, albeit horizontally. Euro News continued that it’s being stretched out, and other parts are being pulled together.
Though ice has been melting since the last Ice Age, the problem is the rate at which Greenland is disappearing and changing. Climate change is the culprit, according to researchers of the latest study. Greenland has been losing more ice than it can reproduce for 28 years, as per Euro News.
Should we be worried? Maybe. At least, the new research provides evidence as to what happens when climate change hits the Arctic at an accelerated rate.
Um, Greenland is getting funky
DTU Space postdoc researcher Danjal Longfors Berg told Phys that Greenland ice has notably “melted in recent decades, which has pushed Greenland outward and caused uplift, so the area has actually become larger during this period.”
“At the same time,” he continued, “we see movement in the opposite direction, where Greenland is rising and contracting due to prehistoric changes in the ice masses related to the last Ice Age and its end.”
His team created a model that tracked these movements over 26,000 years. That, along with data from 58 GNSS stations around Greenland, allowed them to calculate the island’s movements over the last two decades to unprecedented precision. They measured its overall position, the bedrock’s elevation changes, and how Greenland appears to be expanding and contracting, according to Phys.
He continued that, “There have not previously been such precise measurements of how Greenland is shifting. The assumption has been that Greenland is primarily being stretched due to the dynamics triggered by the ice melting in recent years.”
“But to our surprise, we also found large areas where Greenland is being ‘pulled together,’ or ‘shrinking,’ due to the movements,” Danjal Longfors Berg was quoted saying by Phys.
Researchers not only found an unexpected reaction from the landmass, but they also brought to light how disconcerting the phenomenon is.
Should we be concerned?
Euro News continued that the Greenland Ice Sheet is one of the most significant sources of freshwater for the planet. The good news is, last year, in 2024, it suffered the least loss since 2013. However, it has been losing more ice than it can make for 28 years.
How that stands to impact the world at large remains to be seen, though it has caused concern. Researchers instead are concentrating on what this accelerated shift of landmass has to teach geoscience about how it can move. But studying landmasses has a significance beyond that.