{"id":78327,"date":"2025-10-14T18:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/78327\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T18:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:33:07","slug":"greenland-is-shrinking-and-drifting-towards-northwest-geoscientists-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/78327\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenland is Shrinking and Drifting towards Northwest, Geoscientists Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

This happens due to plate tectonics and movements in the bedrock, caused by the large ice sheets on top melting and reducing pressure on the subsurface, according to a new paper<\/a> published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. The pressure is easing both because large amounts of ice have melted in Greenland in recent years, and because the bedrock is still affected by the enormous ice masses that have melted since the peak of the last Ice Age around 20,000 years ago. As a result, the entire island has shifted northwest over the past 20 years by about 2 cm per year.<\/p>\n

\"Horizontal<\/a><\/p>\n

Horizontal land motion observed by the 58 GNET stations in Greenland. Image credit: Longfors Berg et al., doi: 10.1029\/2024JB030847.<\/p>\n

\u201dOverall, this means Greenland is becoming slightly smaller, but that could change in the future with the accelerating melt we\u2019re seeing now,\u201d said Dr. Danjal Longfors Berg, a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Denmark and NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe geophysical processes affecting Greenland\u2019s shape are pulling in different directions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ice that has melted in recent decades has pushed Greenland outward and caused uplift, so the area has actually become larger during this period.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, we see movement in the opposite direction, where Greenland is rising and contracting due to prehistoric changes in the ice masses related to the last Ice Age and its end.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is the first time the horizontal movements have been described in such detail.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have created a model that shows movements over a very long timescale from about 26,000 years ago to the present,\u201d Dr. Longfors Berg said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, we have used very precise measurements from the past 20 years, which we use to analyze the current movements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means we can now measure the movements very accurately.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new measurements are based on data collected by 58 GNSS stations (GPS) placed around Greenland.<\/p>\n

These stations measure Greenland\u2019s overall position, elevation changes in the bedrock, and how the island is shrinking and stretching.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have not previously been such precise measurements of how Greenland is shifting,\u201d Dr. Longfors Berg said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe assumption has been that Greenland is primarily being stretched due to the dynamics triggered by the ice melting in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut to our surprise, we also found large areas where Greenland is being pulled together, or shrinking, due to the movements.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new research provides useful information about what happens when climate change hits the Arctic with accelerating speed, as is the case in these years.<\/p>\n

\u201dIt\u2019s important to understand the movements of landmasses,\u201d Dr. Longfors Berg said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are of course interesting for geoscience. But they are also crucial for surveying and navigation, since even the fixed reference points in Greenland are slowly shifting.\u201d<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

D. Longfors Berg et al. 2025. Estimation and Attribution of Horizontal Land Motion Measured by the Greenland GNSS Network. JGR: Solid Earth 130 (9): e2024JB030847; doi: 10.1029\/2024JB030847<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This happens due to plate tectonics and movements in the bedrock, caused by the large ice sheets on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3146,14093,8560,2027,111,139,69,19794,60773,147,3145],"class_list":{"0":"post-78327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-earth","9":"tag-gps","10":"tag-greenland","11":"tag-ice","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-planet","16":"tag-plate-tectonics","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-solar-system"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}