Plants grow in Greenland ice cores, Will the ice melt?

It was a surprise when scientists found plant and insect remains under the Greenland ice core, even at a depth of 3 kilometers.

This plant is then taken out of the center of the island and proves that the large part of Greenland has turned green in the last million years.

Research also shows that there is a greater potential for global sea level rise due to human-induced climate, compared to previous estimates.

Findings under the ice that surprised researchers

The Greenland ice core currently being explored is rock and ice from an ice core called GISP2 that was drilled in 1993.

The core had been examined in detail, but no one had thought to look for fossils in the mixed sediment at the bottom.

The researchers were surprised to find that three inches of soil contained willow wood, mushrooms, poppy seeds, spikemoss spores and compound insect eyes. Overall, the findings indicate that a living tundra ecosystem exists.

According to the main researcher, professor of environmental science at the University of Vermont, Paul Bierman, if the ice in the center of the island has melted, this means that almost all the ice in Greenland has also disappear.

This means that climate problems are caused by the use of fossil fuels. If greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are not drastically reduced, the Greenland ice sheet could melt almost completely over the next few thousand years.

As a result, sea levels could rise by around 7 metres, which could submerge coastal cities around the world.

“Hundreds of millions of people around the world could lose their homes,” Bierman warned.

Rejects Theory Greenland Can’t Melt

Cited from Science Alert, new research by Bierman and his colleagues was based on two important recent findings.

As of 2016, scientists analyzed cores from the same ice core in 1993 using radioactive particles to estimate the age of the ice at less than 1.1 million years.

The results also show that if the ice melts at the GISP2 site, the remaining 90% of Greenland will become ice-free.

However, this discovery is controversial because of the old theory that Greenland has been an impenetrable ice fortress for the past few million years.

Then in 2019, Bierman and the international team returned to study other ice cores in a different way. They emerged from an abandoned United States military base, Camp Century, and near the coast of Greenland in the 1960s.

They were surprised because the ice, which usually contains sediment, was now covered with leaves and moss.

To limit the loss of the ice portion to 416,000 years ago, they used the most sophisticated dating methods available.

Greenland’s ice is definitely melting

Ongoing research has confirmed that the Greenland ice core is not doing well. Bierman reexamined cores from 1993 to look for material similar to the organic material found in nearby cores.

The results of his research clearly confirmed the conclusions reached by scientists through models and calculations.

“The ice has to melt. Because if it didn’t, there wouldn’t be plants, insects and soil fungi,” said Bierman.

“Now it is known for sure that the ice is melting not only at Camp Century, but also at GISP2, right in the middle of the ice. This shows that the whole ice is likely to melt ,” he concluded.

At the same time, fossils found in the Greenland ice cores need to be drilled further to find more organisms that have a significant impact on the future.

(nah/nah)