Kind: captions
Language: en
the waters all along the west coast of
Greenland were cool right up until 1997
suddenly the waters and this Coast and
in this fjord had suddenly jumped and
it's been warm ever since and since 1997
the glacier has retreated significantly
due primarily to warming ocean waters
the ocean seems to be in control of this
20-year retreat something caused the
waters around Greenland to warm up
quickly even faster than the Earth's
oceans as a whole and while scientists
are still debating why it happened David
Holland and others think it was a shift
in a big current called the Gulf Stream
that brings warm water up from the south
generally it carries warm water from the
United States towards Europe the bulk of
it
in 1997 a major piece of it headed off
towards Greenland the result was a rise
in water temperature of about a degree
you barely notice that in the air
outside but hearing Greenland's waters
it matters a lot
scientists are still working out how
much of a role climate change played in
this ocean warming but one thing is for
sure warmer waters melt Jakub Savin from
below leading to its rapid retreat and
it's not just Jakob Savin in Greenland
what's far more important is the exact
analog of this is going on right now in
Antarctica where the stakes are much
higher because there's a lot more ice
there and the same process could lead to
major sea-level change the jakob 7
glacier ice that's flowing into the
fjord used to sit on land that's why
it's adding to rising global sea levels
as it melts and falls into the ocean but
sea bass ice across the Arctic is also
in decline and the impacts of changing
glaciers and ice cover are already being
felt
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