Greenland's Ice Sheet Was Supposed to Be Rapidly Melting Away. It Hasn't Been
A scientific study analyzing Arctic lake records suggests that many glaciers and ice caps were smaller or absent during the middle Holocene period. The findings indicate that Arctic ice retreat is influenced by complex regional factors rather than just uniform global warming.
Why it matters
Understanding historical climate fluctuations helps scientists better contextualize current ice sheet melting and predict future environmental changes.
The recent retreat of nearly all glaciers and ice caps (GICs) located in Arctic regions is one of the most clear and visible signs of ongoing climate change. This paper synthesizes published records of Holocene GIC fluctuations from lake archives, placing their recent retreat into a longer-term context. Our compilation includes 66 lake-based GIC records (plus one non-lake-based record from the Russian Arctic) from seven Arctic regions: Alaska, Baffin Island in northeastern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Scandinavian peninsula, Svalbard, and the Russian high Arctic. For each region and for the full Arctic, we summarize evidence for when GICs were smaller than today or absent altogether, indicating warmer-than-present summers, and evidence for when GICs regrew in lake catchments, indicating summer cooling.
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