Glacier has ice growth
A HUGE glacier thought to be shrinking from climate change has started growing again, NASA scientists have found.
The Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland was retreating by 2.9km and thinning by nearly 40m annually seven years ago.
But after being in retreat for 20 years, it has started growing again at about the same rate over the past two years, according to the Oceans Melting Greenland project.
Jakobshavn has been dubbed the “king of glaciers” and is thought likely to have produced the iceberg which sunk the Titanic.
Study lead author Ala Khazendar, a NASA glaciologist, said a natural cyclical cooling of the water where Jakobshavn hits the North Atlantic probably caused it to increase.
University of Washington ice scientist Ian Joughin said it would be a “grave mistake” to interpret the data as contradicting climate change as it was a “temporary blip”.