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Greenland’s massive ice sheet is melting — here’s how to save it

The ice sheet could experience runaway melting if the world overshoots climate targets, but even then quick action could stabilize it.
  1. Alexandra Witze
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Streams of blue water on a white and grey ice field covered with cracks.

Melt water courses across the Greenland ice sheet, the largest ice mass in the Northern Hemisphere. Credit: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty

Greenland’s massive ice sheet, which is thawing because of human-induced climate change, could be saved from complete meltdown even if global temperatures soar past key international targets, a study1 suggests. But rescuing the ice in these conditions would require huge future cuts in atmospheric greenhouse-gas levels — and would not prevent the ice sheet from melting enough to cause up to several metres of sea-level rise.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03250-9

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 20 October 2023: An earlier version of this article misstated the extent to which the authors’ work incorporated rapid warming in the Arctic.

References

  1. Bochow, N. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06503-9 (2023).

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