Scientists have noticed shorelines slipping away into the ever rising sea level. All the while, a change in the trend is being observed in Greenland. Despite being home to the worlds second largest ice sheet, the river deltas are growing here, while they are receding everywhere else. In findings published in the journal Nature, researchers observed that as glaciers melt the fresh water they produce picks up and deposits sediments along the shorelines. Scientists were surprised that the ocean does not play a larger role in eroding the coast line; they found that Greenland’s deltas are shielded from the ocean’s waves by large, steep-cliffed fjords. Greenland’s glaciers have been experiencing increasing ice loss for three decades. The shifting coastline is a reminder that Greenland’s ice sheet is changing in ways that may have consequences elsewhere in the world.
