One of the wildcards of global warming is how fast the world’s massive ice sheets are melting. Efforts to measure the rate of melting on Greenland and Antarctica–and thereby predict how fast sea levels will rise–are complicated by something called “post-glacial rebound” of the earth’s crust. When the crust is relieved of its millennia-long burden of ice, it shifts around a bit, and springs back.
In the first comprehensive effort to correct for this phenomenon, scientists from an international team are scurrying around Greenland this summer to install 24 continuous GPS stations into bedrock around the coast. They’re also rigging them up with solar panels and large battery packs to keep them powered up through bitterly cold winters.
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