Water warmed by climate change is taking giant bites out of the underbellies of Greenland's glaciers. As much as 75 per cent of the ice lost by the glaciers is melted by ocean warmth.
"There's an entrenched view in the public community that glaciers only lose ice when icebergs calve off," says Eric Rignot at the University of California, Irvine. "Our study shows that what's happening beneath the water is just as important."
In the summer of 2008, Rignot's team measured salinity, temperature and current speeds near four calving fronts in three fjords in western Greenland. They calculated melting rates from this data.
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