Insulating layer of air above the Greenland ice sheet reduces precipitation

Friday, April 29, 2016 - 13:10 in Earth & Climate

The Earth's climate has been warming, but even though the Greenland ice sheet is melting rapidly in the coastal regions, there are large parts of the ice sheet (40 percent) where there has hardly been any melting on the surface. A warmer climate usually also means that there is more precipitation, but there has been no increase in the amount of precipitation on the ice sheet. New research with participation of the Niels Bohr Institute shows that this is due to an insulating layer of air that forms near the surface during the winter, which insulates the ice sheet from the upper atmosphere and reduces both evaporation and precipitation. The results are published in the scientific journal, Science Advances.

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