Streams and rivers that form on top of the Greenland ice sheet

Streams and rivers that form on top of the Greenland ice sheet during spring and summer are the main agent transporting melt runoff from the ice sheet to the ocean.

“Surface melting in Greenland has increased recently, and we lacked a rigorous estimate of the water volumes being produced and their transport,” said Tom Wagner, the cryosphere program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “NASA funds fieldwork like Smith’s because it helps us to interpret satellite data, and to extrapolate measurements from the local field sites to the larger ice sheet."

Credit: NASA/Goddard/Maria-José Viñas

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