Date: July 20, 2000  Scientists who want to monitor the state of our global climate may have to look no farther than the coastal ice that surrounds the Earth's largest island. A NASA study of Greenland's ice sheet reveals that it is rapidly thinning. Bill Krabill, project scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA reports that the frozen area around Greenland is thinning, in some places at a rate of more than three feet per year. Any change is important since a smaller ice sheet could result in higher sea levels.

The ice mapping was completed by NASA, which has been surveying the Greenland ice sheet for nearly seven years. In 1993 and 1994, NASA researchers surveyed the ice sheet using an airborne laser altimeter and precision global positioning satellite receivers. Those same areas were surveyed again in 1998 and 1999. Now, for the first time, portions of the entire ice sheet covering Greenland have been mapped with sufficient accuracy to detect significant changes in elevation. This report will be published in the July 21st edition of Science journal. There are interview soundbites as well as strong visuals that could be used for any corresponding web sites.

Images for this story can be found at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagewall/greenland.html