In a recent study published in Nature, an international team of researchers led by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Germany have use ice cores to determine that the 2010s was the warmest decade in Greenland in the past 10,000 years, reporting it is 34.7°F (1.5°C) warmer than it was during the 20th century. This study holds the potential to help us better understand both past, and future, climate change, along with how drastically the climate has been altered in just a short period of time.
"The time series we recovered from ice cores now continuously covers more than 1,000 years, from year 1000 to 2011. This data shows that the warming in 2001 to 2011 clearly differs from natural variations during the past 1,000 years. Although grimly expected in the light of global warming, we were surprised by how evident this difference really was," Dr Maria Hörhold, a glaciologist at AWI, and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
Along with logging the temperature changes, the researchers also rebuilt the melt production of the ice sheet, as well, noting the considerable increase in melting in Greenland since the 2000s, which now greatly adds to the rise in global sea levels.
Using datasets spanning from 1871 to 2011 and satellite observations from 2002 to 2021, the researchers were able to convert the temperature changes found in the ice cores to melting rates and ascertained estimates encompassing the past 1,000 years. This new 1000-year dataset now gives scientists a far better understanding of not only past climate change, but how we might be ablet o predict future climate change, as well.
Sources: Nature, Alfred Wegener Institute
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