Institute at Brown for Environment and Society

Greenland’s Melting Glaciers

The Greenland ice sheet is filling the world’s oceans with more meltwater than any other source on Earth, while melting fjord ice is transforming the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable, coastal communities there.

Laurence Smith and his colleagues are hard at work measuring glacial melt in groundbreaking ways, while other members of the Smith Lab are working with Greenland’s Indigenous peoples to better understand how the melting ice is impacting community life, and how their research can be most useful to residents.

Baylor Fox-Kemper is coordinating the oceans, ice, and sea level chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2021 report, which will take into account the melting Greenland ice sheet and forecast the ways in which rising sea levels are likely to impact vulnerable communities worldwide.

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