Geo’s figure: 930 million cubic meters of crevices have cracked the Greenland ice cap in five years

The crevices formation at the Greenland ice cap in figures:
- Among the ice caps, that of Greenland is the second larger in the world
- The melting of ice in this region has raised the level of the seas ofa centimeter Since 1992
- And it should help make it climb 30 cm additional by 2100
- 930 million cubic meters de Crevasses have been formed in five years (TR Chudley, IM Howat, MD King & EJ Mackie, Nature Geoscience, 2025)
- Either the equivalent of the volume of the Khéops pyramid dug in the ice every few days
While the new President of the United States wants to appropriate Greenland for strategic reasons, this territory has the crucial importance for the terrestrial climate is currently undergoing major disturbances.
Researchers from the University of Florida, the University of Durham (United Kingdom), the Ohio State University and the University of Washington have just published the very first analysis of the training of crevices on the scale From the glacial cap over several years (2016-2021).
Crevices: +25 % volume in certain areas
Rather than going to explore these abysses in person, too perilous, or to spot them by hand on satellite images, a task as uncertain as time -consuming, researchers had to develop new approaches based in particular on automatic learning.
According to their results, published on February 3 in the journal Nature Geoscience, more numerous and larger crevices are formed at the Greenland ice cap, reports a press release from the University of Florida.
It is nevertheless a general trend which masks local disparities: thus, a sector located in the west of the territory experienced a drop in the volume of its crevices during the period studied, while in other zones , their volume increased by 25 %.
A vicious circle?
Too recent to be taken into account in the study, data after 2021, however, seem to show more cracks in the Western region, which means that the entire Groenlandaise ice cap should be concerned in the coming years, stress the authors.
However, this digging phenomenon may trigger a positive feedback loop, that is to say a vicious circle: “Crevices can cause acceleration of ice flow, which increases their own training”explains Professor Emma Mackie, geologist at the University of Florida and the study of the study (press release).
“This mechanism should be taken into account in the Greenland ice cap models that we use to predict the future elevation of sea level”she suggests.
A new method has recently been proposed to estimate the “very likely” magnitude of the level of the sea level taking into account this type of factors despite the associated uncertainty – and the results obtained are alarming …