Tucked into the Arctic, Greenland's mountains do far more than provide stunning scenery. They steer winds and weather, shape regional climate patterns, and help dictate how the Greenland ice sheet moves by funneling ice into fast-flowing outlet glaciers and directing meltwater toward the coast. Those outlet glaciers matter globally because they are among the main pathways by which ice from the interior can reach the ocean, contributing to sea-level rise.
Europe's Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, which consists of three Earth-observing satellites, recently took an image of southeast Greenland, capturing a landscape that's equal parts rock, ice and shadow. In the image, steep mountains throw long, inky silhouettes across bright glacial ice near the Helheim Glacier, one of the major outlets that drains Greenland's vast interior ice toward the ocean.
