When scientists study the effects of climate change on Greenland's ice, they typically focus on the ice sheet— the massive, contiguous body of ice that covers some 80 percent of the island. But there are thousands of peripheral glaciers separate from the ice sheet along Greenland's coast, and they've been little studied — until now.
Using a combination of historical aerial photographs and satellite imagery of Greenland, scientists have now analyzed the movement of more than 1,000 peripheral glaciers from 1890 to 2022. And, unfortunately, the results are bleak. According to the researchers, the rate of retreat for these peripheral glaciers has doubled in the last 20 years.
