A comprehensive study conducted in the United States over decades and published in the journal Nature last January reveals a troubling reduction in the size of nearly every glacier in Greenland. 

The world’s largest island has lost 20% more ice than previously estimated, the authors concluded after the analysis of hundreds of thousands of satellite images spanning from 1985 to 2022. 

The Greenland ice sheet is losing more than 300 billion cubic metres of ice per year, driving global sea levels up by a little less than a millimeter per year, according to Copernicus, Europe's climate monitor. 

Greenland after 100,000 years of convergence temperatures of 0°C to 6.5°C. With no warming (top left) things stay as they are. With extreme climate change (bottom right) ice remains only on a few isolated mountains. Credit: Nature

Previous assessments suggested that approximately 5,000 gigatons of ice had vanished from Greenland's surface over the past two decades, a substantial contributor to the rising sea levels. However, the recent study, drawing from almost 240,000 satellite images depicting glacier terminus positions, highlighted that almost all glaciers in Greenland have experienced thinning or retreat over the given period.