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Concept
Greenland ice sheet
Summary
The Greenland ice sheet (Grønlands indlandsis, Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering , roughly near 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is sometimes referred to as an ice cap, or under the term inland ice, or its Danish equivalent, indlandsis. The acronym GIS is frequently used in the scientific literature.
It is the second largest ice body in the world, after the Antarctic ice sheet. The ice sheet is almost long in a north–south direction, and its greatest width is at a latitude of 77°N, near its northern margin. The average thickness is about and over at its thickest point. In addition to the large ice sheet, smaller ice caps (such as Maniitsoq and Flade Isblink) as well as glaciers, cover between around the periphery.
The Greenland ice sheet is adversely affected by climate change. It is more vulnerable to climate change than the Antarctic ice sheet because of its position in the Arctic, where it is subject to the regional amplification of warming. While only a small fraction of the ice sheet is expected to melt during the 21st century, it is believed that most or even all of the ice sheet is committed to melting under the present or likely near-future climate unless the recent warming is reversed, making it an example of a climate tipping point. If the entire of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of , although this is expected to take millennia to fully play out.
The presence of ice-rafted sediments in deep-sea cores recovered from northwest Greenland, in the Fram Strait, and south of Greenland indicated the more or less continuous presence of either an ice sheet or ice sheets covering significant parts of Greenland for the last 18 million years. From about 11 million years ago to 10 million years ago, the Greenland Ice Sheet was greatly reduced in size. The Greenland Ice Sheet formed in the middle Miocene by coalescence of ice caps and glaciers. There was an intensification of glaciation during the Late Pliocene. Ice sheet formed in connection to the uplift of the West Greenland and East Greenland uplands.
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